language delay peeps

[houseelf]

As I've mentioned before, my feelign that DS2 may have a language delay has been corroborated by my pediatrician. He is only two but says maybe five words regularly with a history of up to ten words total. No signs indicate autism or hearing loss, but rather an expressive language delay. She wants to defer intervention for at least 6 months to 1 year. On one hand, I do believe that everything is so diagnosable nowadays, he is just a late talker. On the other hand, I do know in my heart that he is fairly behind in this developmental milestone. For those of you who have been through this, should I press for more intervention or should I let this ride.

You know, because I need somewhere else to drag the kids to in addition to the orthodontist, lacrosse, ballet, girl scouts, church....LOL.

[MrsK]

I don't have any experience but I'm a big believer in that momma feeling in the heart. I'd follow up if I were you.

[v-girl]

I wouldn't wait. I would start therapy soon. The sooner you start, the sooner he starts talking.

[moonlight]

You know our ped recommended a speech eval at our last appointment which was at 18 months. She sort of says momma and dada but not really to call out for us. Our eval is next month when she is nearly 21 months old. When the pedi first talked to me about it she said 2 years old was our cut off for sending her to the speech eval peeps. Then she changed her mind and wanted to send her sooner. Just from what our pedi said, I'm just curious as to why he wants to wait until 3 yrs old. In my own mind I was going to give DD until 2 before I got 'worried' and was going to request a second look. The other issue is the pedi is talking about maybe sending you for the eval in six months... thats around the holidays? BTDT and no way do I want deal with something like that around the holidays.

[madeintaiwan]

Mèi was evaluated at 2 and though she was behind, she still fell in the "normal" range. She was WAY behind compared to J who I can't remember a time he wasn't speaking in sentences. That said, between 2 and 3, the language came to her. Maybe your ped wants to wait and see since you do have other children in the home and it's not a matter of not getting enough exposure/stimulation, which I can see happening with an only child. With other children talking with him and interacting with him, he's getting plenty of "therapy." I had the same doubts about waiting as you did, but we did wait and it turned out. I would do a lot of reading, pointing things out, speaking slowly with emphasis. If you feel comfortable waiting, I would wait. It's not as if he'll be locked in a box without any stimulation.

[alison]

To play the devil's advocate, could it be that your older ones were very quick with picking up words, and your younger son appears to be slower? There's a girl in one off dd's classes who is 22 months old, and she came up to dd and me, and as clear as day pointed to dd and said "she's drinking milk."

Holy crap! My almost 22-month old daughter points to a window and says things like "mama, sis a pali. Sis a pali." What?!

I do think that at around this age there is a huge range of what toddlers can say.

On the other hand has he had his hearing checked? Have you been able to rule out any physical issues that might be causing this? And... go with your gut!

[MrsK]

To play the devil's advocate, could it be that your older ones were very quick with picking up words, and your younger son appears to be slower? There's a girl in one off dd's classes who is 22 months old, and she came up to dd and me, and as clear as day pointed to dd and said "she's drinking milk."

Holy crap! My almost 22-month old daughter points to a window and says things like "mama, sis a pali. Sis a pali." What?!

I do think that at around this age there is a huge range of what toddlers can say.

On the other hand has he had his hearing checked? Have you been able to rule out any physical issues that might be causing this? And... go with your gut!

LOL, should I be concerned that my 17mo says "milk" and "cracker" more often and clearly than he says "mommy"?

[diggitydot]

Err on the side of early intervention. If it's unneeded, you'll discover so pretty quickly. If it's needed, the earlier the intervention the better the results.

ETA: DS (9 y/o) was diagnosed with an expressive-receptive language delay at rue age of 3. He's been in therapy ever since and has made ridiculously HUGE leaps.

[scrub-jay]

To play the devil's advocate, could it be that your older ones were very quick with picking up words, and your younger son appears to be slower? There's a girl in one off dd's classes who is 22 months old, and she came up to dd and me, and as clear as day pointed to dd and said "she's drinking milk."

My best friend's kid is a language prodigy ("uh-oh" at 9 months, "mama, put milk in baba" at 12... wth, sentences??), it is disgusting and I frequently catch my self comparing, I couldn't imagine how hard it would be with siblings. *end hijack*

[v-girl]

My middle kid was the kid using complete sentences before she was two. The other two needed speech therapy.

[HouseofWool]

It is so hard. I might push for early intervention, but I am realizing that I am *that* mom who thinks everything needs to be fixed. Granted C has had some pretty huge hurdles, but I find myself pushing much harder for him then I do for S. YYMV.

[ides]

I would get an evaluation from early intervention. You don't have to have a Dr. referal to get one.

[moonlight]

We have a family member with two kids. Now they are college age but the younger child had speech problems. I think part of his problem was a bad social problem (that it i think he still has, but thats for another chat) but the doctors also warned the mom about not letting the older child speak for him. he was letting his older (and very bossy!) sister do all the talking for him. i'm not saying the older child was the problem (even tho the family blames her for his speech problems. nice, right?) but it was something that wasn't helping a bad problem he was developing.

[diggitydot]

You can go through the local school district's early intervention program, but they'll try to flag him as autistic. The people who do the evals are only trained to spot "flags" and are wholly unqualified to differentiate between an autism spectrum disorder and an expressive language delay, even though that is precisely what they attempt to do. It took us 2 years to get the autism label off of DS's IEP. And that's even WITH the DX form from our specialist, who is one of the top in his field in the nation.

A developmental pediatrician is your best bet.

[DCJenn]

I was going to suggest the local school system (free!) My brother didn't have that experience w/ the speech therapists within the school system but his issue was that they sent (in home speech therapy) the young ones to do the speech therapy. When the Master's level therapist came (months later) she changed up everything and he started making huge strides.

Now, my friend's kid already had the Dx for autism so it didn't matter but they've also had in home speech, OT and PT and it's been a great experience. (in DC no less!)

Jenn