My dd couldn't make over 13 letter sounds at age 3. They have been working articulation with her for over 3 years. She still struggles with F, Th, R, V, L at age 6. It is much better than 3 years ago, but it takes time. She also has terrible time with grammar (verb tense, drooping prepositions, pronouns, etc). I know that I had a lateral lisp and had speech therapy for 6 years. I no longer have any trace of the lisp, but articulation problems take time and certain sound are only appropriate at certain ages. We live in a part of the country where she doesn't always have the worst speech and language problems in the class. Thank God for ESL students! The great thing is that she has a desire to talk, initiate conversation and communicate. I take everything else one step at a time.
are there days you just want to cry watching your child struggle to talk? I know there are many children out there that are non-verbal and Mason can talk, and I don't want to make anyone with non-verbal kids feel bad! I just had a hard time today watching Mason in speech therapy. I know he has made such great gains in his speech, he was non-verbal until 3 and I do get to hear him call me Mommy and I am sooo grateful...
But I was watching him in speech trying so hard to make the right sounds and it just wasn't happening...he has been working on s/z and f sounds all year and he still struggles...he has to literally stop and think before making the sound and even then 1/2 the time it doesn't come out right...and it never carries over into conversation...but watching him think this process through today just made my heart break! He tries so hard and it still isn't coming! I had to quietly wipe the tears away today, I definitely didn't want him to think he was making me sad.
Usually I am so happy to hear him talk, I just think now that he is getting older his speech delay is becoming more and more obvious...I think I'm just having a rough streak and having this pity party is topping it all off! Thanks for letting me get this off my shoulders.
Do you think it's more that he knows he can't form the words and that's why he omits...I guess I never thought of it that way...I should probably ask his therapist, huh?
I really have no idea because I've never met Mason. I sort of had two things in mind when I wrote what I wrote. First, I was thinking about gtto. She's certainly someone who struggles with speach but can produce beautiful language. Second, I was thinking about the disappointment that followed the girls acquisition of functional language. Ironically, the better they learned to talk, the more apparent it became that their language was atypical and wouldn't be "normal" anytime soon. When they spoke few words, it was possible to imagine that it was just a delay that would eventually be overcome. As they acquired more and more language, ironically, it became obvious that it was more serious and pervasive than I had imagined. It's not a delay - they actually have some impairment in their ability to express their thoughts and understand the spoken language of others, which was kind of like a bubble bursting. I don't know if I'm making sense anymore - for some reason, I'm still up at 1:30 am! G'Night :)
Thanks all so much...I guess I too was up way past my bedtime last night, lol...I was just sitting here thinking about it all day and night.
I guess with Mason, right now anyway, the articulation is the most noticeable...I still think of him as a toddler, because I guess when he talks that's what it reminds me of...even a lot of his behaviors and actions make me think that he is still a toddler...he has a hard time understanding what people are saying to him...he needs things told or explained to him in 1 short thing at a time...if we try to double up tasks, like go get your shoes and put them on, it's too much for him to take in...it needs to bring your shoes here, and then I go from there...we have to use a lot of visuals for him...he can answer simple questions that are concrete...like what's your name or how old are you, but if it is more abstract like what's your favorite color, he gets confused...I think he just hears the "what" because a lot of times he will answer "Mason" or "6" to that question....most of his conversation is him answering my questions...if he is playing with something I can sit down and ask him simple things about what he is doing and sometimes he answers and sometimes he doesn't...I know from observation and what his teacher has told me that he doesn't communicate at all during school, unless it is in a 1 on 1 environment...but then on top of all of that he has the articulation...so whenever there are times that he is reaching out to talk to someone it is very difficult to understand, I guess for me I understand a lot more than most.
I do think I am going to ask his speech therapist more about this...now it's really got me curious...is this just a delay or is this a disability...is he just behind or does he have a problem processing like Fred talked about. I do know they are working on he/she we/they and I...usually Mason refers to everything as we if there are more than 2 ppl...it's "we go bye-bye" even if he is referring to someone else leaving and is meaning "they are going bye-bye." It's hard because I'm never sure if he is talking about us or someone he has just seen...the other day he was telling me "we have red car" which we don't...and then I looked out the window and saw a red car in my Mom's driveway (we live right across the street from her.) I was just happy that he referred to it as "red!" He usually doesn't do that! But it took me awhile to figure out what he was talking about and by then he was frustrated with me for not understanding and walked away!
So anyway, thank you all again! I was just so sad yesterday watching him.
Oh it breaks my heart too. Especially Andrew. Andrew pronunces almost no constants, he talks in sentences but does not move his tongue. I can't understand a word he is saying, yet I know he is trying to tell me something. and he gets incredibly frustrated that I don't understand him. And i get frustrated I don't understand him too. I just figured out last night how much speech he really has that i didn't even know he had. THe hearbreaking part is when someone new is around and andrew ackowledges the person and says Hi. He says hi and bye to everyone who enters and leaves the room. I have to tell them that Andrew just said hi to them so that they will acknowledge him. tHen they are like OH! and say hi to Andrew. But if he isn't acknowledged when he communicates he's going to stop communicating.Adam has problems with expressive and receptive language, but not articulation. But I can tell you that my middle son has had many articulation problems. He has always been verbal, but was in speech from age 3 to just before school ended this year and he is 9. So, it is a long hard road. It took over a year for him to transfer what he was learning in speech to everyday language. And his is NT. Well, I guess. He is ADHD. But hasn't had a language problem. Ah articulation.. I will say this about it. I didn't speak when I was younger. Not because I didn't want to, or because I didn't know what to say but because I had a hard time saying it. My tongue is too large. Like literally, I was diagnosed with a large tongue. This meant I slurred all my words and a lot of things didn't come out clearly.Fred, T's semantics and pragmatics come and go, proportionate to the amount of stressful auditory input she is having ... this summer, there is NOTHING detectably unusual about her language usage, interestingly. Yet, as recently as March, she made virtually NO SENSE.
Hang in there -- things can suddenly fall into place when you least expect it!
Tzoya...I sometimes wonder that too...I know it is common for ASD children to not respond appropriately to us and sounds...but Mason had a lot of ear infections when he was younger and had ear vents twice...he has had quite a few of the hearing tests, but not very accurate readings because he doesn't cooperate.
Can they see the brain stem on an MRI...Mason has had several MRI's and don't recall them saying anything was wrong with the brain stem...or is this a completely separate test they have to do?
Thanks
My 16yo is very functionally verbal and gets his points across, but his language is disordered, which means his sentences are not grammatically correct and often he struggles. The truth is, although we still hope for improvement and he still gets 5 days of speech therapy a week, I don't believe his language is going to improve to the point of normal speech/language. As many of you who have read my posts over the years know, our son is moderately deaf. He hears, but hears poorly. He's worn hearing aids since age 3. Had we not had a brain stem test to PROVE his poor hearing, all the pros would have assumed that his speech issues were just from the PDD-NOS. They kept telling us his hearing was fine (tho he never fully cooperated with an audiology exam). But I couldn't rest until we had a DEFINITIVE answer. Glad I pushed. He has a 55 decibel loss in each ear. Had he not gotten hearing aids, he definitely would have ended up nonverbal.
Lesson: If an audiologist administers a hearing test and cannot give you an answer about your child's hearing with 100% certainty, schedule a brain stem test. I'm convinced that there are many children out there who would be verbal if someone had just discovered their hearing loss.