2 Year Old with Speech Delay

My now 3 yr old has gotten services since before he was 2 due to a speech delay. The county services were a mixed bag. They sent a teacher out for a while and didn't really see him that often and finally I had to really push her to get the speech therapist involved. Then the speech therapist would see him once every other week. It really wasn't enough for us so I also put him in private speech therapy once a week. He is still delayed but much improved. The private therapist told me that it would be a marathon, not a race, but he would catch up eventually. Definately do the services that the county early intervention will give you, but keep in mind you may have to push them because they are very busy (although my sis in law has Harford County and they are wonderful about seeing her little boy, so maybe it depends on the county) and get private services if you need to. Good luck.

I have not had speech therapy for my daughter, she is a little advanced in that area. But my nephew, he is now seven, started speech therapy two years ago in kindergarten. I couldn't understand anything that he was trying to say. Now I can. A few months after he started therapy, I could understand most of what he was saying.

I have had a couple of friends who had speech therapy around this age and it worked wonders!!! However, I have noticed tha tkids who are are speech delayed also tend to be easily frustrated and tempermental, and I think tha tthat is something tha tspeech therapy alone doesn't address. It makes sense that some kids who are late talkers are more prone to outburst since they can't communicate their needs effectively. IF this seems like the case with your child, I suggest working with the therapist or hte pediatrician on ways to help there. Being able to talk and using words effectively can be very different things. But, yes, speech therapy does wonders!!

My 2 year old is in the same boat. We just moved up here and I knew his speech was delayed, so I asked our new pediatrician for a referral and she game me the number to Early Intervention. We've set up our first evaluation for next week. I hope the speech therapy helps, because my son gets so frustrated. He gestures and screeches for everything, which hurts my ears. After all this time, you'd think I'd get used to it. We've been doing everything I know to do at home, and it's time for professional help. Good luck to you and anyone else in this situation. Hopefully our sons will learn and grow into happy boys soon.

Good Morning,

I had my daughter evaluated when she was two. She has received speech since two and last year she went to a 1/2 day pre-school through the county. This up coming year she will be in full day preschool through the county. She is doing great!! Talking up a storm! We are still working on some of the more finate details and social language, but she is now talking. It is great that you had your son evaluated and he is getting help. Early intervention is key!! I see it everyday at work...I am a speaical education teacher. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me!

S.

Hi J.,

My now 5 year old went through that it speech therapy was such a blessing for her. We found out she was autistic and she also had to have occupational therapy, but getting the speech therapy really helped the stress level because now my daughter can communicate (even in sign language) and I'm not pulling my hair out when she throws a tantrum. It really does work especially when you have a therapist that your child really likes. My daughter loved her therapists and at first there was a little resistants, but that's normal when you're working with someone you don't know at first. If you have questions, let the therapist know your concerns and they will help you with anything in their power. I had so many questions and I was a little skeptic at first, but the therapist calmed all my fears and now my daughter can talk.

I have a 3 1/2 yr old who is deaf and has gone through many years of speech. He wears hearing aids and has some speech.

One suggestion... make sure that you try to contact other families that are involved in Early Intervention as well!! It is kind of difficult because some county programs sound wonderful, but don't really work for the family. They also use wording that is unfamiliar to most parents. Do you have an IFSP?? Make sure that you think of small goals you want your child to reach and make sure those goals are written on paper. Good luck!! I hope this was helpful!!
Take Care
Jen

My daughter is now an adult. She had therapy from 3yrs. old -7years. old in public schools in Virginia and then Maryland. It helped tremendously. Later, she became a lector at church, learned multiple foreign languages and has done well in life. Congratulations for taking the initiative and having him evaluated early. You are helping him to be successful once he starts school. Speech is not only for communication but for learning. Good luck!

My children have never needed it, but a close friend of ours child has. He did wonderful with it. It was amazing to see his improvements.
Good Luck!

Hi J.,
I agree with Diana about using what you learn from the therapist and applying it at home. My son regressed at 18 months and would not look at us when we spoke.He was off in his own world. We thought he may be autistic.
Having the therapy has brought him back to us and it didn't take as long as we thought because I worked with him everyday. It helped that I am a SAHM and could spend each day working on his speech. We went through the early intervention program and then we went through the school system for hearing testing after that just to "be sure" he was still hearing well.
He learned sign language very quickly (at his first speech therapy appointment) and that helped a lot because before then he would get frustrated because we didn't know what he wanted.
My son is now 4 and is at his age level, and maybe even above that, for development. We don't know what caused his regression but are blessed that he is back with us and doing well. I highly recommend the early intervention program and anything in addition you can do with your child will be beneficial as well.
Good luck.

My 4 year old daughter had the same problem when she was 2. We went with the county speech therapy services (it was about a 2 month wait period) and she only had about 2 months of visits but it did the trick! I watched a couple of times and it did not seem what they did was too involved but whatever it was, it worked for her. She got up to her age mark in that short time. I was grateful and she is doing great now in preschool. Good luck!

My sister is currently having the same trouble. She has her son in speech therapy at the school i believe. He goes i think 3 days a week and it helps a little. I think it needs to be part of a system. Work with him while your home also. She has also taught him a little sign language because he was getting frustrated with no one understanding him. But i think the more you talk to him and they more you expect from him the better things will go. Don't go "oh well he has a hard time at this and it frustrates him so I won't do it as much" This matters you need to push it even when it hurts. His life depends on it.

Hi J.,
yes speech therapy can help; however, it all depends on who the the therapist is and how good they are, but what I think is even more important than that is that you take what you learn from the therapist and work with your son at home. I have a toddler who is 3 and still doesn't talk but we are getting closer. Praise the Lord!
Have your son's hearing tested. Consider sign languag for some form of communication. We have a picture board that our son takes a picture from to tell us what he wants.
There a bunch of ideas that your therapist will talk to you about and you just need to find which ones work best for you and your son.
Let us know how it goes.

My son did have speech therapy for a speech delay as well. We had toys in the house with letters, like the ones that stick to the walls in the tub and the one by leap frog that sticks to your refrigerator was great. We tried to read him books, when he was interested. We watched programs like Sesame Street and Word World and other programs on channels like Noggin, Sprout and PBS. The appointments seemed to be almost counter active at times, mainly because he seemed to want to just leave and frustrated by the end of them. But we stuck with some of the therapist's advice and low and behold, one day it was like he just suddenly knew his alphabet and numbers and now he is spelling small words and he repeats anything and everything anyone says. He sings songs and definitely amazes us sometimes. He loves to listen to books at night, and has even become more interested in stories that are much longer than he once wanted to hear. I hope you have similar results!

J.,

My oldest HAD speech problems. We had him evaluated at 24 months, he started his speech therapy at 26 months, meanwhile I had had his brother severasl weeks early. Then he went onto the ECI program at Quarterfield the fall of 1998. Now at 13 yo, he won't stop talking! I see his therapist at Quarterfield all the time, my younger kids go there now, and I constantly tease her about not installing an off switch when she taught him to talk.
Also, one of the ways that we started with his communication was sign language, your therapist will show you some basic signs.

I have not had a child with speech delay but I have had students with speech delay. Those who go for help have improved over time. I also use a toobaloo with my speech delay students. That helps them hear what I am saying more clearly plus they love talking on a telephone. It is $5 at the teacher store. I also know a teacher who had both of her sons require speech therapy. Both were in the program 2 years and both went to kindergarten with no problems. My brother (he was 2 or 3) went for speech also and we got to help him learn how to talk with a mirror. I remember thinking that was pretty neat when I was little. So I guess my answer to your question is, yes, it is effective and will work when the parent is pro active. Best Wishes!

Yes, I had both private and services from the pwc school system. I had great success. My son is doing great. The best thing is your ped. caught it earlier enough and your son will be getting treatment soon then later. Just stay on top of it and go with your gut if you think your son needs more services keep it going. I hope this helps.

Yes, speech therapy will help your child acquire language skills. I assume you've gone through the full battery of testing (developmental and hearing) to be sure that any and all factors contributing to the delay are being addressed. My little boy had chronic middle ear fluid that was impairing his hearing and contributing to his delay in speech. We had tubes put in and began speech therapy when he was two and after three years he was retested and dismissed from special services just before starting kindergarten. He is a little chatterbox now. What the previous poster mentioned about the frequency of tantrums with speech delayed children fits with my experiences; obviously, if you don't have the language to express your wants and needs it can be extremely frustrating. Work with your team to find strategies to use at home to facilitate communication with your child and stick in there.

Dear J., I am the mom of 6 boys. Three of them have had need of speech therapy, so far. At first, with my now 12 year old, I thought it was a waste of time. However, we stuck with it and he's so much the better for it. My 6 year old has a stutter, and had unintelligible speech, and now after 3 years of speech, he's still stuttering a bit, but he's completely understandable. My not quite four year old is still in speech therapy. He has made great strides since he began at 1-and-a half. Most of the "treatment" involved getting the boys to say sounds properly(or as close as they could), and then rewarding them with play. Singing songs also helped the younger guys, as did reading the books we had about their favorite things(trucks, animals, ball games,superheroes), and having them make the sounds of the things in the books. My four-year-old made really fast strides this way. You will have to try out what the speech pathologist gives you, but tell her/him about what motivates your little one. If he loves to watch Diego, then maybe a Diego book will help a session along. If he loves trucks, make sure they are handy so that they can be used to communicate. I am a believer in speech therapy, but you really do have to create a fluid plan for your little guy, and when he has a session that is fun, and productive, make notes of what he did, and replicate it, as often as he will tolerate it. It's not supposed to be a "working" session, so if he decides you're done after 10 minutes, you are. The other thing I want to suggest is that you make sure he has some time with other little folks who are a bit older than he is, say 4, and ask the other kids if they will help him push trucks around or play a block game with him. You will have to help maybe, for a little while, but if he has even a little success communicating what he wants or needs, to another child, it will pave the road for more initiation. God bless you.

Hi J.,

My son who will now be 3 years old on Monday has been getting speech therapy through Infants and Toddlers program of Maryland (not sure if this is what program you are referring to). He has been getting it since he was a little younger than 2 and they came to our house 1-2 times a week to do therapy. He is now turning 3 and will go to the next program which is Child Find where he will go to the therapist at a local school twice a week and receive therapy there.

The therapy has been very effective for my son. He is still not where he should be at 3 years old but before Jan 1 of this year he really only said the word Mama, Dada..and other blurred words. Now he is talking up a storm..still not there but his words are more definable and he's putting more words together to form sentences.

The therapy is really a great tool for the parents. There were a lot of things that I didn't realize that I was doing that were keeping him from learning which was hard for me to swallow but something that I quickly changed.

My advice would be to really use the therapy as a learning tool for you and how you can help your son. They may only meet with him once a week but you can take anything that they are doing with him and do it on a daily basis..and ask lots of questions...don't be embarrassed by anything. I soon realized that it was me..not these therapists that were going to help him get through this. I just used them as a teaching tool on what I should do.

Good luck with anything and I'd be happy to hear how things are going once you start!

It works - It works - It works!!! My daughter started speech therapy at about 20 months - she wasn't saying anything at that time - she is now 3 1/2 and is talking up a storm. She's still behind, but not nearly as much as she was :-). We started out in the PIE (Parent Infant Education) program in Prince William County with a speech therapist coming to our house 2x per month and she's now in ChildFind and getting speech therapy at the local elementary school once a week.

Our daughter had a lot of fluid in her ears and ended up getting tubes just before she turned 2 - I know this was a lot of the issue with her speech problem, but she has other issues as well - tongue forward mouth posture and some developmental delays. We have seen a dramatic improvement in her. My thoughts were and still are - any additional help can only help her and any additional help that I can get or give her at this stage is only going to benefit her. Having a trained therapist work with your child will also help determine what issues he is having with speech and if there is something wrong (as in our case with the tongue forward posture) and the therapist will know exercises and ways to work with these issues. Ours does mouth/tongue exercises with our daughter and has shown us ways that we can help as well at home.