Speech delay mommas...

kel716

We've been in speech therapy since November.  We started at 1 day/week, now we're at 2 days/week thru HMG and CCHMC. 

He's making progress, but he still doesn't speak many words.  I'm pretty sure he knows more signs than words

Signs:  Hi/Bye, More, All Done, eat, drink, Cars, Bubbles, Computer, Help, Stop, Up, Down, Ball, Playdoh, Quiet, Cookie, Key, Book, One, Four, Five, six, eight, ten

Words:  Mama, Dada, Hot, Moo, G-ma, Baa, Three, Nine, Off, "F" (for fish), E, Yes, No, Bubble, What's that?/Who's that.  He's said other words but never repeatedly or really more than once. 

Needless to say I'm starting to worry more and more.  Yes, we've made a ton of progress since he just had the first 3 signs when we started and the first 4 words when we started...  but I just feel like we should be farther by now.  And I really want to be able to hold a conversation with my son.  Am I asking too much?  Am I just a worrywart?  Thoughts? 

thanks for listening. 

 

Moesten

Hugs to you, Kel. That's distressing and I would imagine it makes you sad. I am glad B is making progress but I am sorry it's not as rapidly as you had hoped. What does his speech therapist say? Have you had formal review of his plan yet? Is he reaching the short term goals set?

JenRose05

This sounds like the progress Ben was making at the same age. We started out with 5-6 words and then at about 2 years 7 months he had a mini language explosion. He learned a lot but a lot of it was intelligible. Now he's speaking long sentences but still has issues with phonology. We are wrapping up with HMG and moving on to Loveland ECC for speech therapy since he had a really low score in phonology, good thing is that he has made lots of progress regardless. I totally understand your frustrations, it sucks Whats worse is seeing the frustrations of your child trying to express themselves and lashing out instead. Big hugs! Give it a few more months and if nothing changes I would ask for even more aggressive therapy.

escape1st

Ditto Jen!  Wait a couple more months to see if he starts talking more.

DS has been in speech therapy since January, 2010.  I would say that the first 7 months we saw an increase in his words, but it was in August/September that he started talking!  A lot.  LOL  The therapist said that it was completely normal since they first concentrate on him learning the correct way to form the letter sounds and then they concentrate on the words and putting them together.  DS has made a ton of progress especially since he has slight hearing loss in his left ear from all of the ear infections he had as an infant.  I see new developments everyday with him still. 

I know it is super frustrating, but B has come a long way in the four months that he has been in speech therapy! 

kyfirewife

Moesten:

Hugs to you, Kel. That's distressing and I would imagine it makes you sad. I am glad B is making progress but I am sorry it's not as rapidly as you had hoped. What does his speech therapist say? Have you had formal review of his plan yet? Is he reaching the short term goals set?

This.

It sounds like he is making progress, just slowly. Try to keep in mind that he's moving forward, and that's good.

DD was speech delayed, but was making very slow progress, then all of a sudden within a month's time it was like she decided to get on board! It was crazy. She's still a little bit behind other kids her age, but she's really caught up a lot, and continues to slowly improve.

Just keep remembering that he is progressing, albeit slowly.

And if you haven't yet, definitely sit down with your therapist and get a good evaluation of how they think he's doing, his rate of progress, etc.

KYmama9286

I may be in the minority but I think that is GREAT progress and seems to be progressing at a pretty good rate! Especially when you look back at where he has come from. For my with all DS therapy I have realized I appreciate and recognize his progress much better when I only am comparing him to himself if that makes any sense. I know it can be disheartening to look at the progress he's made (and feel good about it) and then see another child his age who is much further ahead and realize even WITH progress he still isnt even close to being at age level.

When I stopped doing that, and stopped comparing him to other kids, I realized ya know what, he may still be behind but he has made HUGE progress! Also what some of the pp said, look at his IFSP and what were the goals you had for his 6 month evaluation? Has he reached those goals, is he getting close? For us, the big marker of progress was when I looked back at his goals and he has met almost all of them! I remember thinking, when I made the goals that he would NEVER be doing those things in 6 months b/c really 6 months is not that long of a time frame. Sure enough he is truckin right along and while its a little slower than others he is still making some progress! 

It wouldn't hurt to verbalize your concerns to his SLP and see what they think. Ours is really good about saying yes your concern is pretty valid and we should look into it more or While I understand that is a concern for you, from a professional standpoint he is right where he should be based on the work we are doing. GL and I hope things continue to go well! 

ETA: I wanted to add too that speech is a tricky thing to monitor really, especially since there truly isnt a way to measure how much his receptive language skills are progressing. He may be understanding way more than he used to but that isnt as obvious as progress than hearing him say words to you. Progression in receptive language is ALSO progress even if it doesnt sound like it.