Not Talking- Advice?

[SILLYANDI]

Call your local department of health, and get in touch with early intervention. Within 30 days, they will send out professionals who will evaluate your ds, for free, and will provide services if he qualifies. There is no downside to having him tested - either they will say he is fine, or he will get speech therapy. I had my youngest ds evaluated at 15 months, and they came out and said he had a delay, but not a 6 month one which would qualify him, but to call in 3 months if he didn't improve, which he didn't. He started ST at 20 months, and it was amazing how much he improved!

Speech therapists get SO annoyed at pediatrician's who say to wait it out - IE services are SO much better before the age of 3, and the earlier, the better. I know many who called EI at this age, and no one ever regrets it.

I agree with this. My son was a preemie and spoke at 9 months but suddenly stopped around 12 months. Luckily we were already a part of the "regional center" in our area and he was receiving OT, PT so we requested a speech eval there. Your area should have a regional center (I'm pretty sure it is nation wide) you can contact your local NICU or social services and see if they have the contact info. I would do it sooner than later. My son really progressed well with the one on one (and they taught the whole family everyday sign language which cut down on his temper tantrums)

 

[Mommy2JulietJocelyn]

In our family - DD#1 who is now 4. said maybe 3 words by 18 months - Dr was concerned at 12 months because she didn't talk at all, again at 15 months and finally talked me into calling EI at 18 months, she had her eval at 20months and expressive was only at a 12month level, receptive was wonderful as was gross & fine motor skills. She started speech therapy about a month after that due to lack of Speech Therapists in our area. It turned out that she wasn't using the muscle in her mouth correctly and she made the back guteral sounds - "g", "k" sounds but not the front sounds - "d, p" so we had homework exercises - blowing a cotton ball across a table using a whistle, we were told to stop using a regular sippy cup and to use a straw cup. she had speech for 6 months and "graduated" Now she is too darn smart for our own good.
I live in NJ, you do not need a dr referral - you just call

 

[dreamer17555]

I wanted to let you all know that I contacted our Health Department and awaiting a call back. I will let you all know how it goes. Thanks for the advice

-Becca-

 

[bonybroad]

My older son was also diagnosed with apraxia at a very early age. I knew that he wasn't just a "late talker," I don't know how, but I knew.
Luckily for me, one of the premiere specialists in apraxia is fairly close to me. He was able to diagnose the apraxia. I drove my son to speech therapy three times a week, and EI came to the house 2x a week.
He still has some issues at age 7, but he is completely intelligible. And he still has speech therapy once a week.
Get him checked, it's free, and it will ease your mind!

I would also like to add that I taught both my sons to sign from birth - I have a sister who is deaf. It turned out to be a huge blessing because he never got frustrated. When he tried to sign to people who don't, he pretty much treated them like THEY were the ones with the problem. Kind of funny.

 

[Mouse House Mama]

He isn't frustrated by not talking, he's frustrated with his parent making him say a word before giving him what the parent KNOWS he wants.

"We have been trying to get him to say the word ie, "cup" when he wants a drink but he gets so upset that he usually ends up in tears and refuses the drink."


He's communicating. You get what he's saying, what he wants. He's doing fine. Stop insisting on his saying a word UNLESS you don't know what he wants.



And if you don't understand, call in his sister who does, and then give him what he is asking for.


I was 2 when my brother was born, and he barely spoke until he was 3. He *didn't need to*. I understood what he said and what he wanted (even when he didn't say it). There was NO NEED for him to talk.

He's stinkin' brilliant, he has an incredible job at Cisco that he got after doing Air Force ROTC while getting an EE degree at Duke, and he's incredibly happy in life. And he's very generous with his big sis, possibly b/c I always knew what he wanted, LOL.



DS was 20ish months old and not talking much. He started signing just a bit (what I signed to him, so he was 100% but I didn't teach him much, LOL) at 6 months old (I signed from his arrival whereas many people START at 6 months old and then have to wait several months for baby to learn it), but didn't talk much. Called hubby "papa", called me "milk" (I don't speak in third person and hubby didn't call me anything but my name (which is what DS calls me now), so he called me the word that was associated with me) and not much else.

I'm not one for over-worrying, so I like to say I was just getting started to think about wondering if maybe I should find out if I should see if I should worry. And then we started watching Blue's Clues.

I talked to him all day long. Hubby talked to him once he got home from work, but hubby was working ALL the time. That job was brutal with the overtime!

Shortly after starting to watch Blue's Clues and having Steve or Joe talking "to" him a half hour at a time, he had a language explosion. I figured that it was the MALE voice in the room that made all the difference.

After DS was two I ran into my second cousin who had a son about the age that mine was before BC, and she was talking about the same thing. I mentioned Blue's Clues, she started watching it with her son, and the same thing happened.

We love Blue's Clues (especially with Steve...Joe bugs us) around here.

Sorry for the OT but your son calls you by your first name and not Mommy?

 

[bigbabyblues]

Check with the ped, but my oldest DS didn't talk until he was almost 3. Nothing wrong with him, he was just lazy, I guess. I had DS2 when he was 2 years and 8 or 9 months, and he started talking after that.

 

[all4fun]

I don't know if I would be worried at this point but if you are then, as others said, you can always get an evaluation done by a speech language pathologist (SLP). HERE is a site where you can click on your state and it has links to who to contact for EI in your state. I also agree with the pp's who said getting evaluated by a SLP is much different than an evaluation done by a pediatrician.

We also were referred by our ped to an SLP through our HMO (Kaiser Perm.) and took a class given by her called "It Takes Two to Talk", developed by the Hanen Centre (Hanen.org here), which was excellent, and I think any parent who is concerned about their childs speech would benefit from. HERE is a link to the text book we used, which had lots of practical advice in it. You can go to their site and see if there's a class available to you. Our HMO did not cover the cost of the class - I think it was $180 for us to attend, however IMO it was totally worth it as it gave me some valuable tools. My ds is five, in K now, and still qualifies for a very small amt of speech therapy through the school, but his speech is much improved and we actually laugh about it now when we can't get him to stop - "remember when we couldn't wait for him to be able to talk?" lol

Anyway, hopefully you have nothing to worry about. I hope this helps.

 

[kim929]

My second dd didn't start to really talk until she was 2 1/2, that was when ds who is a yr younger then her started talking. We had her tested. She used to fail every hearing test at her well visits, and at school but would pass when she was tested at the school for the deaf. She was a very very shy child until about the age of 13.

 

[dis75ney]

I was also worried about my son when he turned two and barely spoke. His ped saw that DS was SO far ahead on the physical end of the scale that he figured that DS's brain was concentrating on building up his physical attributes and the speech would come in time. Same as yours, he understood and knew exactly what DH and I were saying.

Low and behold, when DS was 30 months old, his language skills EXPLODED! One night, I put my rather silent toddler to bed, he said "Love Momma," and I woke up the next morning to "Momma! I want out! I'm hungry! I want cereal! Where's Daddy? Momma!" and it hasn't stopped since...DS is now 8 and the only time he isn't talking is when he's sleeping...

If your gut is telling you that something is wrong, then have him checked out...it can never hurt to have multiple opinions...

Hope everything works out for you and The Baby!

 

[Robmom]

I was in the same situation. My DS didn't talk. In fact at 18 months, he didn't even say the words your DS does. He did use a pacifier all that time, so that may have been a factor. His pedi referred us to an early intervention place. They evaluated him and approved him to have speech therapy. Let me tell you, that helped him tremendously. He is 3 1/2 now and speaks pretty well. He doesn't have therapy anymore. I still feel that he is a little behind, but the pedi believes he will catch up. He's in preschool, so that will help him out a lot.

 

[lindsmom]

Sorry, didn't read all the posts, but:

I was worried about DD at around 20 months; she grunted. Seriously. I think she said dada, but that really was it. Pointed and grunted, my little cavegirl. Ped said not to worry till 24 mos, but for my peace of mind she authorized EI (my health insurance needed her authorization). DD was evaluated at 7 months speech level. After I finished crying, we started 2x a week with a speech therapist who was WONDERFUL. All DD needed was to pop her word dam, because within 6 months she wouldn't STOP! HAHA.... we joke now about how she was vaccinated with a phonograph needle (grandpa's joke).

But looking back, I think I worried more because she's my first; in retrospect DH and I have learned a lot about her. She was late at everything - walk at 1 year (but then she stood up and walked across the room); crawl at 9 months (but she went straight up the stairs). At four years old she picked up a book and started reading. And talking, well... We now chalk it up to her perfectionism - it's just her style to observe until she has it mastered in her brain, then and ONLY THEN will she do it. She doesn't try stuff, she does it.

I'm not saying this may be your situation, but definitely look into early intervention for your peace of mind, if you think there's something wrong. Here in MA, EI services are covered until age 3 then it's transferred to a different program. So if you can wait 6 months, I would say to do it. But certainly if you're worried, go ahead and get the eval to make you feel better.

Good Luck!

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My first son wasn't talking much by the time he was 3. We asked the ped. several times and she would just say, "It's OK, he'll catch up." I was frustrated and really thought something was wrong. It wasn't until I enrolled him in preschool that I saw him around other kids his age. I couldn't believe how much those kids could talk! My son was also a little different socially than the other kids. It turns out he has an autism spectrum disorder. By the time he was 7, we settled on a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome which is a very high-functioning form of autism. He is now 13 and doing very well in a specialized school.

I'm certainly not saying that all speech delays are serious. I now work in my son's old special ed preschool classroom. Many of our kids are simply delayed and need extra help to catch up. Some just don't process language as quickly as others but speech/language therapy can work wonders for them. We do see many kids who don't have a reason to talk. Everything is done for them at home and they've never had to request anything so they don't. We have to break that cycle by incorporating language into everything we do in the classroom.

I think the important thing is that if a parent thinks something isn't right, get assistance right away. Doctors can tend to be too conservative. You know your child best and your instincts should be trusted. If there is a problem, you can start addressing it right away.

 

[puffkin]

We are also using early intervention for my son 2 1/2.....but we are now just monitoring him because he has improved so drastically in just a few months

At 2 years old my son was barely saying anything and the few words he did say were hard to understand. So we set up the evaluation and got him into the program. Within weeks his talking has just EXPLODED and now we can't get him to be quiet. It is amazing the stuff that comes out of his mouth and the vocabulary he uses and understands!

The sessions were great because to him it was play. But the therapist gave us lots of easy ideas and ways to help develop his speech and other learning skills. A lot of it were "duh" moments, because they were such simple concepts that just never occurred to us.

My son was also a late walker, crawler, sitter, etc. But when he did them it was like he had been doing them forever. I guess he just waits until he can do things right before he does them. It is kind of amazing how literally one day he can't walk and the next day he is RUNNING around the living room. He just did it last week with potty training. Last week (1 day before leaving on vacation) he decided he was potty trained and that was it.......no accidents all week in WDW. I often wonder if he would have been the same with the speech, but I don't regret getting him in early intervention. It was free and I would rather be safe than sorry.

 

[lucigo]

You have gotten some great advice! I too whole heartedly agree that you should call Early Intervention and get an evaluation. My son was evaluated at 20 months and was in speech and OT for 4 months before his evaluation with the specialists for Autism.

The one thing I want to add, is to get your child in with a speech therapist who will let you sit in on the speech sessions and learn how to help your child. You can do SO much at home to help your child learn to talk and a good ST can give you wonderful ideas on ways to bring the speech out of him. I made a comment on another thread earlier this week that its amazing what a good ST can do with bubbles and plastic frogs. It doesn't take any fancy tools.

There are also several speech therapy sessions posted on youtube if you want to look there to see what ST is like. (Including a few of ours.)

The day my son started kindergarten and we had to leave the ST and OT we had seen for over 3 years I cried like a baby. These young women gave my son a voice and I thank them for that everyday