Speech, communication advice for my toddler son.
Discussion
Hi, I'm actually trying to find out if anyone has any advice and information regarding halted or non developed speech for children.
I know he is young at 3 and a half though he has next to no communication. My 22 month old niece has dozens of words that she can say and can communicate her intentions to her parents. My son can't at 40 months. Well, I say can't, he can say "who hah" for who/what's that and "bah bah" for bye bye. That's comforting, though nothing to what professionals advise.
I'm aware that some children don't speak until they are about 40 years old, though my son should be able to say or communicate more information or feeling toward me and his mum.
He had a rubbish birth. His mum was induced. For the last 30 or more minutes of my wife's labour, there were issues that I could see.
With the umbilical cord around his neck 3 times, every time my partner had a contraction, she and her muscles were pushing but the cord was cutting off the blood supply to his head. It got to the point where we had 2 doctors, anesthetists snd lots of nurses/midwives in the room with us.
After about 30 minutes of watching the blood flow to his head stop for 30 seconds or so, it came back. The team made the "wrong" decision in MY opinion, not to do an emergency caesarian section. They left and for a further 25 minutes, my wife continued to contract and those contractions caused blood flow to stop to my sons head.
Anyway, enough of the finger pointing. My son has had CAMS input and speech and language, portages, pediatrician, mental health and other reviews, including his hearing. All of these have proven, until now, useless.
I was wondering if anyone had any advice or services they would recommend?.
Thank you.
I know he is young at 3 and a half though he has next to no communication. My 22 month old niece has dozens of words that she can say and can communicate her intentions to her parents. My son can't at 40 months. Well, I say can't, he can say "who hah" for who/what's that and "bah bah" for bye bye. That's comforting, though nothing to what professionals advise.
I'm aware that some children don't speak until they are about 40 years old, though my son should be able to say or communicate more information or feeling toward me and his mum.
He had a rubbish birth. His mum was induced. For the last 30 or more minutes of my wife's labour, there were issues that I could see.
With the umbilical cord around his neck 3 times, every time my partner had a contraction, she and her muscles were pushing but the cord was cutting off the blood supply to his head. It got to the point where we had 2 doctors, anesthetists snd lots of nurses/midwives in the room with us.
After about 30 minutes of watching the blood flow to his head stop for 30 seconds or so, it came back. The team made the "wrong" decision in MY opinion, not to do an emergency caesarian section. They left and for a further 25 minutes, my wife continued to contract and those contractions caused blood flow to stop to my sons head.
Anyway, enough of the finger pointing. My son has had CAMS input and speech and language, portages, pediatrician, mental health and other reviews, including his hearing. All of these have proven, until now, useless.
I was wondering if anyone had any advice or services they would recommend?.
Thank you.
Has he had speech therapy ? Our first born suffered from delayed speech, at 2 1/2 years old he only knew 1 or 2 words. The speech therapy helped a great deal and once he started talking he wouldn't stop, probably making up for lost time 
Edited by SignalGruen on Tuesday 10th September 23:48
SignalGruen said:
Has he had speech therapy ? Our first born suffered from delayed speech, at 2 1/2 years old he only knew 1 or 2 words. The speech therapy helped a great deal and once he started talking he wouldn't stop, probably making up for lost time
This, my sister works in speech and language therapy and they can work wonders Edited by SignalGruen on Tuesday 10th September 23:48
read5458 said:
After about 30 minutes of watching the blood flow to his head stop for 30 seconds or so, it came back. The team made the "wrong" decision in MY opinion, not to do an emergency caesarian section. They left and for a further 25 minutes, my wife continued to contract and those contractions caused blood flow to stop to my sons head.
With all your years of Medical training and experience you came to this conclusion. I am not medically trained, my wife is a neonatal nurse and works in ITU with babies that have serious issues, I am lead to believe that once the baby is starting to be born naturally and in the birth canal then that's the way it's coming out as there isn't a surgical option anymore.I am not medically trained. I am an Auxiliary Nurse.
The cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times. Not once, so there was nearly no movement possible. The cord was also half way again around his head.
So, common sense might play a big part in understanding that she was pushing and he was still unable to travel down the birth canal.
I didn't put this in the original post, but he came out limp, not breathing correctly and head was a deep dark purple compared to babies born without complication.
This meant that after a few minutes of disorder and everyone trying to sort him out, he was transfered to special baby care unit. ITU.
You are correct about being too far gone for the C section, but listening to the docs, they wanted to wait and see even though a c section could work. Mainly because he hadn't traveled.
Thanks for the advice on the speech and language. I'll keep pressing on with that.
Thank you.
The cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times. Not once, so there was nearly no movement possible. The cord was also half way again around his head.
So, common sense might play a big part in understanding that she was pushing and he was still unable to travel down the birth canal.
I didn't put this in the original post, but he came out limp, not breathing correctly and head was a deep dark purple compared to babies born without complication.
This meant that after a few minutes of disorder and everyone trying to sort him out, he was transfered to special baby care unit. ITU.
You are correct about being too far gone for the C section, but listening to the docs, they wanted to wait and see even though a c section could work. Mainly because he hadn't traveled.
Thanks for the advice on the speech and language. I'll keep pressing on with that.
Thank you.
I'm not a speech therapist nor any kind of medic but have worked extensively with kids ranging from 2 to 19 who have difficulty communicating for various reasons.
At least one old-fashioned ST may try and tell you that teaching him to sign or use symbol cards will delay development of normal speech. This is absolute b
ks, refuted by ample research - but it's still possible someone might suggest it so I wanted to arm you against that one.
I think sign language is great for a kid that can use his/her hands well - it gets that exchange of information between you happening, and will help him to back up spoken words you don't understand (therefore stopping him from being discouraged from trying). The real argument starts with which sign language to use - Makaton, British Sign Language or Sign Supported English, and the choice there will largely be decided by what support you've got. Do you ever watch Something Special with him, and can you get him to sing/sign/talk along with what's going on there? Something Special uses Makaton which was originally designed for people with learning difficulties but is also very useful for kids whose motor skills aren't great (even if they don't have a learning difficulty), and generally for young toddlers as it's nice simple movements that are easy to learn.
All the best.
At least one old-fashioned ST may try and tell you that teaching him to sign or use symbol cards will delay development of normal speech. This is absolute b
ks, refuted by ample research - but it's still possible someone might suggest it so I wanted to arm you against that one.I think sign language is great for a kid that can use his/her hands well - it gets that exchange of information between you happening, and will help him to back up spoken words you don't understand (therefore stopping him from being discouraged from trying). The real argument starts with which sign language to use - Makaton, British Sign Language or Sign Supported English, and the choice there will largely be decided by what support you've got. Do you ever watch Something Special with him, and can you get him to sing/sign/talk along with what's going on there? Something Special uses Makaton which was originally designed for people with learning difficulties but is also very useful for kids whose motor skills aren't great (even if they don't have a learning difficulty), and generally for young toddlers as it's nice simple movements that are easy to learn.
All the best.
Our lad started school, woefully below par on the speech front. He's 14 now and exceptionally articulate, a probably above the level of his peers.
There was no neurological reasons and speech therapy worked wonders.
Something that the therapist advised us on was that because we knew what he was trying to say, even though it was difficult to understand the words, we responded as he expected so from his point of view, the way he was communicating was correct. There was no need to do anything different. We took this on board and when he'd ask for something and we couldn't fully understand it, we'd not give him it, even if we knew what it was he was after.
There was no neurological reasons and speech therapy worked wonders.
Something that the therapist advised us on was that because we knew what he was trying to say, even though it was difficult to understand the words, we responded as he expected so from his point of view, the way he was communicating was correct. There was no need to do anything different. We took this on board and when he'd ask for something and we couldn't fully understand it, we'd not give him it, even if we knew what it was he was after.
My son was exceptionally quick at talking, very articulate, could talk for England by the time he was 3. When he started school they said they'd never heard a vocabulary like it. He's 17 now and all he does is point at stuff and grunt. From the tone of the grunt I'm meant to know if he approves of it or not.
My 4 year old daughter has (amongst other things) delayed speech, can probably string a four word sentance together but we use makaton which really assists. She has also been having private speech therapy and I recommend this. Interestingly she started mainstream school last week and I have to say that even in one week her speech is radically improved. I had my first 'conversation' with her the other day, although it was about what she wanted in her lunchbox and that she wanted to eat cheese sandwiches every day. You just need to keep plugging away at it, it will come with the right support.
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