My Son Has Some Develpment Delays

Deaf children can have entire conversations with their parents even by 6 months old because sign is easier to learn, and easier to do than speaking. Basic signs might be helpful for the two of you, you can pick up a book anywhere. There are also videos to use as teaching aides.

J.

Hi, K.~

As a mom of a 2-year old girl with developmental delays, I know what you're talking about.

I fully concur with many of the moms who have suggested evaluation through Early Intervention programs. I don't know where you are, but most areas have them. We are working with our daughter on ASL, and it is VERY slow going, but she is getting there.

I also agree with the mom who suggested autism evaluation. It does sound like that could be a possibility.

A play group really helped my daughter. Especially if your son is an only child, which it sounds like he is, being around other children his age will help his speech and behavorial issues. Make sure to take time for you. Good luck!

My son will be 3 in Dec and we are working on this part...He ha sno development issues or anything, and he does sign language as well, but he has a hard time with his feelings and emotions and gets frustrated if I don't understand or he can't get it out and bites, or cries, or throws a fit...All that not so fun stuff! I even have the cartridge for his Leap Frog that talks about feelings and that! My son also sucks his thumb (gets that from his dad...LOL) but he tried to talk with his thumb in so we are working on that as well as it goes along with all this! I just sit with my son and we talk when there are probs or behaviors that need to be talked about and it seems to help??? And don't get discouraged with the sign language...My friend didn't start teaching her son sign language till he was two after she saw how well it worked with my son...=) I hope this helps? I hope things get better with this!!! =) T.

Take him to Nevada Early Intervention Services (NEIS). They can do a full evaluation on him. He may have autism and if so, the earlier the diagnosis the better. He is very young and with early intensive intervention can make huge gains and possibly lose the diagnosis (if it is autism). My almost 4 year old daughter has high functioning autism and I wish we had had an earlier diagnosis. She wasn't officially diagnosed until 3 1/2 but I knew she had it and started intervention immediately. By that I mean she was placed on the gluten free casein free diet (GFCF) and started on dietary supplements thru a DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor. She has made HUGE gains. No one wants to hear autism but once you know you can take action. Feel free to e-mail me with questions. Another good source of info is tacanow.com (Talk About Curing Autism Now) and FEAT (Families For Effective Autism Treatment) www.featsonv.org.

I do know what your going thru.

B.

I also recommend Early Intervention evaluation thru the school district. It's government mandated and funded and costs you nothing. However, I would not immediately think of autism as the cause. My grandson who is now 3 acted in ways similar to the way you describe your son and they ruled out autism. He has a speech delay and is getting speech therapy. They told us that the earlier the child gets started the easier it is to help them.

Here are a couple of sites from the internet that I found helpful.

www:tayloredmktg.com/dyspraxia/das.shtml

www:aafp.org/afp/990600ap/3121.html

Since these didn't print in blue I may not have the exact correct address. I found them by googling speech delay. You may bet even more sites by entering dyspraxia.

My daughter bit others out of frustration before she could talk well. I think the most important thing is for you to try and stay calm when he gets upset and maybe have some kind of quick distraction technique to re-focus his attention, and tell him no hurt. Also you could ask him to show you what it is he wants that way he gets to have some control and won't get so upset in my experience.

Sounds like you've heard all the same advice I'd give you. As the mom of a 7-year old with autism, I've been thru it all. Not that it necessarily is autism--I'd go see your pediatrician first. Our doctor was very good and helped us see the right people for a diagnosis and got us in a good program. Early Intervention is okay, but it just depends on what your child really needs. In our case & our school district, it didn't help much at all because they didn't really know how to deal with an autistic child. Feel free to contact me with any other questions. I'm glad to help.

Are you working with EI(Early intervention) at all? My good friend's son also has some speech delays and found that working with EI has helped develop his verbal skills and helped master his signing so he is better able to communicate.
Good Luck!!

R.

I have heard that ASL is a great way for children to communicate to their parents when they are unable to verbalize. Maybe you can try to start incorporating it to give him a new tool in his box.

2 things. The Curious George Series has a Curious George that has several interchangeable faces that little ones can change to tell parent about the severity of feelings. Happy ,sad, mad, etc. which helps a bit
Check out Hyperbaric oxygenation (HBOT) Treatment. This still not fully accepted treatment is being used more and more for various kinds of Delayed or full blown DD. The person is placed with others in a large oxygen chamber (looks like a submarine) and 100% oxygen is delivered to the deepest areas of the body especially the Neuro. system. There is a neuroHBOT Yahoo chat group that you can ask questions. Also Lots of info on internet. Closest to Montana is Pocotello but there are places that cater just to children. C. welzel, RN ____@____.com

I would suggest maybe using sign language with your son. I did this with my son and he was able to communicate things with me that he was not able to speak at a very young age. At first, he did many signs, but as he learned to speak the word he stopped signing it. I took a class that was very helpful that was specifically geared towards using sign language with children up to 3 yrs old. There are lots of learning materials out on the topic. Check out www.weecansign.com. Hope that might help.

My best friend's son sounds exactly like yours and she had him tested and found out he was mildly autistic. You might want to check into that.

Hi K.!

Has your son been formally diagnosed with anything? My daughter was late with everything - walking, eating and talking. She wouldn't eat baby food or eat anything other than her bottle until she was a year old! She also walked late and still isn't the clearest talker and she's now 3 1/2.

I know several of my friends had their 2 and 3 year olds in speech therapy. My pediatrician had given me a referral because my daughter wasn't eating and I was told it's all related. Fortunately, the day of her 1st birthday, she ate cake! (Apparently she just didn't like baby food). I never did use the referral. However, my husband still doesn't understand my daughter very well.

If your son hasn't been diagnosed with anything, I would talk to your pediatrician about it. See if you can get a referral to a speech therapist.

There is another thread along these lines somewhere on this site. On it some one said that their little boy was getting so frustrated he would bang his head on things. One of the things they did to help was make a picture book, using photos and cut outs from magazines. That way when the little boy was having difficulties he could just point to the pictures in the book.

HI K. - My 3 year old also has some delays, I don't know if you have looked into your state available programs, but I have to tell you that it was the best thing I ever did for him. We actually move around a lot, but I have found that all the states that we have lived in have programs especially targeted at kids under 3. They can cover everything from speech to occupational therapy and it has made a huge difference in his abilities. My son is now 3 and only in speech therapy once a week and he is in a regular preschool. Hope you can find something that works as well for your son!

K.,

If you are in Nevada, contact Nevada Early Intervention Services. You can find the number by entering that on yahoo yellow pages. They provide no-cost-to-you evaluations and services. They will likely have his hearing evaluated and then offer a plan of speech therapy and possibly other services. They do have kind of a philosophy of training the parents and not directly interacting with the child...which I find really annoying. We did EI with my son for a year before we transitioned to the school district for services (EI does birth-3, school district does 3 and on). We didn't see great improvement with my son until we hired a private speech therapist but that is an expensive way to go. You want all of the free services first. If you are in Las Vegas and have the ability to hire a private speech person, I've had really good luck with Goodspeech, Inc.... They have been a God sent for my son. From August until June with EI my son went from 10 to about 50 words but since Goodspeech started working with him (in addition to the EI services), he has advanced to more than 200 words and phrases. He now has the educational diagnosis of ASD (autism spectrum disorder) which is probably one of the last things any parent wants to hear about their kid but I have to say, after a period of being pretty freaked out about it, I'm glad we know where to start to get him the help he needs.

FWIW, with EI, insist on more services. I know they are understaffed and underfunded but learn early what I didn't know. Ask for AT LEAST an hour of speech therapy each week where the therapist works directly with your child. Take the parent training too but insist that they work directly with your child. I lost a year by not knowing that. Also, ask for an OT assessment (occupational therapy) to see if your son has any other issues. The sooner you know, the sooner you can start helping him. It is really hard to know what is developmentally "typical" when it is your first or only child. And there is a huge range of what can qualify as developmental delay (ASD is only 1 of many) so it is better to have an idea of what you are dealing with and go from there. If you want to talk about anything, please feel free to contact me directly. At this point, I've got lots of been there and done that experience that would have been really helpful if I would have known it when I started.

As for sign language, have you tried the www.signingtimes.com videos? They are fantastic.

Good luck to you and your son!
T. ____@____.com

Hi K.,
We also had Erika in Early Intervention for some developmental delays, she has low muscle tone and crawled and walked late as well. She also had some chewing/swallowing issues...and currently, she has caught up dramatically but she still does have some speech problems. She does alot of talking but I don't know half of what she is trying to say, although she must know b/c she'll repeat the same word over and over and over...I feel terrible. She also gets very frustrated and will slap herself in the face of clench her hands and her jaw really tight.

We started signing with her when she was a baby and she picked up on all of them, but now the uses her words for most of her signs, so they have phased out, but have been trying to learn new ones so she can communicate more until she knows how to say what she wants.

Most importantly, EI told me to MAKE him ask for things...put things up on the shelves and make him tell you what he wants! With Erika, I was enabling her to NOT talk b/c I was so intune with what she wanted that she would get it without having to really ask for it...so they told me to play dumb and it worked, she picked up on ALOT of words quick if that was the only way to get something.

I really hope that helps a little, EI is great and I'm sure he will catch up in no time!

p.s. I'm not sure if I'm reading the right stuff, you said you are in EI and are using signs, yet that's all the responses keep saying to do, and they keep mentioning Nevada? But aren't you from Portland? I'm so confused, but this is my first day here so maybe it's me!