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Anyone experience speech/language delays in their toddler? If so, are they on the autism spectrum? What have you tried to help either?”

Asked by lit-teach-ma on 16th July 2008

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Comments so Far...

I didn't talk till I was 3 years old- I was the youngest of 3 girls. They did everything for me-so why did i have to? One of my younger daughter - she also didn't talk till 3 years old - she did take speech at school for acouple years (passing down too much Jersey accent?) But she is find-she always was a good student and did wonderful in all her classes. So some of us are just late bloomers.

Flag as inappropriate by eileen b on 22nd November 2008
My son was non verbal at 2 1/2 years old. We noticed other behavioral alerts. The Dr. sent us to the Regional Center, which tried to tell me my son was high functioning autistic. I fought the label and they left with with PDD, speach and language impared, severe ADHD, and aspergers syndrome.
We noticed a tremendous improvement once he began going to the speech pathologist. He was in special ed classes thru kindergarden, He is now 10 and is fully incorporated in general ed. It is difficult but all the time spent working with him has paid off.

REPORTED by Dulce on 19th July 2008
My son was non verbal at 2 1/2 years old. We noticed other behavioral alerts. The Dr. sent us to the Regional Center, which tried to tell me my son was high functioning autistic. I fought the label and they left with with PDD, speach and language impared, severe ADHD, and aspergers syndrome.
We noticed a tremendous improvement once he began going to the speech pathologist. He was in special ed classes thru kindergarden, He is now 10 and is fully incorporated in general ed. It is difficult but all the time spent working with him has paid off.

Flag as inappropriate by Dulce on 19th July 2008
My son was non verbal at 2 1/2 years old. We noticed other behavioral alerts. The Dr. sent us to the Regional Center, which tried to tell me my son was high functioning autistic. I fought the label and they left with with PDD, speach and language impared, severe ADHD, and aspergers syndrome.
We noticed a tremendous improvement once he began going to the speech pathologist. He was in special ed classes thru kindergarden, He is now 10 and is fully incorporated in general ed. It is difficult but all the time spent working with him has paid off.

Flag as inappropriate by Dulce on 19th July 2008
Yes, my son (now 4) was not talking either. We noticed that when he was 14 months old, he didn't respond to sound either. We got his hearing checked and he was fine.

My son was diagnosed with PPD and minor autisim. Now he's 4, and in an IEP program at preschool.

I also think that he's very empathetic, so that could be another reason behind the not talking.

That's when we started with Early Intervention. You should really check into this if you have it in your area. It is a Government program that helps with children like this.

Hope this information is helpful.

Flag as inappropriate by Giazz on 18th July 2008
Yes, with my now 4 year old...
He would say a few words here and there, but soon after he turned 2 he stopped talking all together. He would use his own form of sign language or sounds (like a caveman) to communicate. It was so very frustrating because the pediatricians just wrote him off as a possible late talker. By the time he was 3, we made no progress what so ever with his expressive language, so we finally got to have him tested. He was tested for Autism, though that wasn't really a concern because he had no other signs/symptoms. He passed hearing tests, but our audiologist wanted to test him for auditory neuropathy, which came back inconclusive. We had no answers from any of the doctors, and we were finally told that the family needed to learn sign language to be able to effectively communicate with him. Just a few months after I was told that, I found an amazing speech pathologist who worked very closely with him and suddenly something just clicked. He was 4 years old when he started speaking in small sentences. He'll be 5 soon, and we still go to speech therapy, and probably will continue to for quite some time.
I know how heartbreaking and frustrating it can be not to be able to communicate or even understand your own child, my only advice to you is go with your gut feeling if you think something is wrong and the easlier you get them into speech therapy the better it is in the long run.
Good luck!

Flag as inappropriate by Donya on 18th July 2008
Yes
My son was a late talker. He was 2 and barely said anything, by 2.5 I was freaking out and although he was fine in all other ways- looking us in the eye, playing socially,etc.
My best friends son is autistic and has apraxia so she cautioned us about tons of things. Which made me freak out even more.
We had him evaluated. They came to the house, it was called BIRTH TO THREE. They were here for one hour. After 15 min, they said we had nothing to worry about, but they had to do the eval.
So dont ya know, he started talking in sentences right before he turned 3.
He does have a speech issue, his muscles are weak, so he has trouble with a few sounds.
He is in speech therapy to correct this.
I always asked the DR's why does he drool so much as an infant, they had no clue.
Well it is a muscle issue,
Anyway
That is my story,
Early eval is key, no matter what it is I am told.
Good luck to you with everything

Flag as inappropriate by DebR on 16th July 2008