Speech Delay - Stockton,CA

My son is 7 years old and is high functioning on the autism spectrum. When he was 2, the Developmental Specialist told me that he would never be able to talk. Well, he's talking (no thanks to her!) with a little bit of a speech delay and is holding his own in a general ed 1st grade class with special ed support.

When he was younger, and even now, I did a lot of work with him to help him with his communication, social and life skills. Rather than going into it, I would recommend that you pick up the book called More than Words: Helping Parents Promote Communication and Social Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder from amazon.com. It really breaks down the stages of communication and provides you with simple social and communication games that are appropriate for each stage.

Chances are, if your son has PDD/NOS, he will be just fine. You just have to teach him in a way that is meaningful to him, give him a little bit extra help in the areas of socialization and language development, and probably take into account other things like sensory issues as well. Just remember: who your child is today is not who he will be tomorrow. He is an ever evolving person.

Good luck to both you and your son.

My son just turned 3, he has the same diagnosis, we have been through a solid year of speech therapy and ABA therapy, he also starts pre-school
( run and funded by the school district) in August. I am sure you are doing everything you can think of, what it comes down to is each child is different and finding what sparks his or her interest, we have been very fortunate, Alex adores Sesame Street, so honestly as much as some people are anti television it has been amazing for Alex, he will still repeat a lot of what he hears, snippets of songs, repeated sentences, but he is starting to put words of his own together too ( I think the term for the repeating is called echolalia) Alex likes books, but rarely likes them read to him, he prefers lots of pictures and having everything named, he also likes flashcards ( different I know, but whatever works) With his ABA therapy we have done things like line up 3 different colored cars and ask him to touch or point to the red one, etc. We do the same thing with different animals, Alex loved animals and before he could even say yes and no he would name animals and make animal sounds, from the therapists perspective I know they were excited, but it was hard for me knowing I had a two year old who could say Rhinocerus, but couldn't ask for more apple juice...I don't know how things go at your house, but I will say we used as many alternatives to giving Alex a way to communicate as possible. We used some baby signs and watched baby sighning times, this gave him more "words" for a long time he could sign things he could not say...we had a picture board for routines, we used a flip book with velcro pictures to help with what he wanted, outside play/ different food choices such as snacks, movies etc...anything we could take a picture of! We no longer use the signs although he still signs more occassionally when eating = ) We no longer use the picture charts...it was a God-send for diaper changes, Alex did not deal with changes in routines well...we dealt with a LOT of tantrums...when he was able to communicate his wants and needs more effectively we saw the tantrums subside. I didn't think it was possible that Alex would make this much progress, he even has started saying yes...it will happen for you too, its a lot of hard work, but the resluts? So worth it = ) I can see the light at the end of a trying year, for some it takes longer, we just started working on potty training, I expect it will take a while, but I approach everything with optimism...if you make it seem "fun" it won't be work ; ) If you want to ask anything or just talk, feel free to send me a private message. I cannot praise my son's therapists enough, they have helped us so much, never fear to ask the therapists if there is anything you could be doing in addition to the work they do, ours have always given us ideas = ) Lots of luck, it WILL come with time = ) Just your son's time, that was hard for me too!
Just so you know, the first few times Alex was tested he failed the M-CHAT, for a while due to his testing and his "quirks??" they were convinced he was Autistic, he is still "on the spectrum" but Autism was taken off the table as a diagnosis...you are doing the best you can by him, early intervention is so important!

My son is 27 months and gets speech therapy and developmental therapy. It was great reading the success stories! He really loves flashcards and Babybumblee videos. We also make learning and interacting part of our everyday lives. He has to say the word or make any attempt at a word before he gets anything. He caught onto Help and Wait very quickly and that helped us immensely. We sing songs and he fills in the blanks and I give him jobs to do as much as possible. I also act like I don't know what to do or what he wants. I don't get him to the point of crying but he is really starting to understand that he gets things much quicker if he uses the word. Also get him to look you in the eyes as much as possible. Good luck!!

Just wanted to share that O. of my son's best buddies was a PDD/NOS diagnosed kid and with the services he received, he is now in a completely typical elementary school (going to 2nd in the fall) and his teachers aren't even aware of his diagnosis.
I would suggest that you talk and read, read and talk, and talk and read some more to him as much as you can! Just hearing the written word helps kids SO much with language development! Good luck! He'll be fine.

T.,

It would be very uncommon for your son to really be on the spectrum and then be off it with a few years of speech therapy. If he really is on the spectrum, and I wonder if that is the case with the information you provided since you have confilciting reports, the only trick is very hard work from you, his therapists, his school, and himself.

While autsim can be very mild, it does not go away, and he will most likely continue to have needs that develop and change as he grows, which is the most likeley scenero for kids with PDD-NOS. As his peers develop significant skills, he will also have more significant needs due to social reasoning, pragmatic deficits, executive functioning delays, and lingering langauge issues. Many children also have significant sensory and motor planing issues as well which will effect more complexed social, emotional and educational challenges. Did his evaluation indicate issues with these areas, or was it a "soft" diagnosis? If a developmental pediatrician did a full evaluation with many hours of testing that support the PDD-NOS diagnosis, you may be very disapointed when he gets to kindergarten. I have seen many doctors try to soften the blow of an initial diagnosis by down playing how serious it is, that happened to us too, but our daughters have not lost their diagnosis.

I say this because I don't want you to be disapointed if your son really does have PDD-NOS, because whatching a movie is not going to cure him, and even with therapy it is unlikely that a child with PDD-NOS will just snap out of it with any tricks. I know that I had this kind of feeling once that we would put our oldest child in therapy, and that would fix her, and it just does not work that way. You may have to find that out for yourself, but let me suggest that you opt for more than two hours of speech therapy, and push for as much as you can get him now. All in all, if you are very agressive with intervention, he will do better, but that does not mean that it will go away.

I wish it was rosier.

M.

Have you tried a pecs book, so he can have pictures to go along with the words? Sometimes this helps a lot, and sometimes it's a hinderance, they sometimes get lazy and will refuse to use their words since they can use a picture, worth looking into, Good Luck!

When our son turned 2, he literally spoke no words! His pediatrician referred us to VMRC. They came to assess him and he definitely has a speech delay. He began therapy one time per week when he was 26 months old. At the age of 3, he was then referred onto Lodi Unified School District for additional services. He started in a Special Education preschool class at a local elementary school at the age of 3 years, 1 week. He has been in school for a year and his speech is phenominal (sp??). I don't believe there to be any "tricks" to helping a child with language. What I did was the same thing that the therapist worked with him on. On the days he did not receive speech therapy, I did the same activities they did. Continue with VMRC and know that there are additional services available for your son once he is 3 through the school district. Best of luck to you and please send me a personal message if you would like any additional information. I am more than willing to share all I can!