Not Talking - Spring,TX

I agree with the other moms. Talk to the pediatrician. You should also probably contact the local school district to do an assessment on him.

C.
www.littlebitquirky.blogspot.com

I am going to take a more hard line direction here. Make two calls today if you can. First, call a Developmental Pediatrican. Call Childrens Hosptial and ask for developmental pediatrics, and tell them you need to make an appointment with a developmental pediatrician. This will take several months to get in. DO NOT WAIT.

When you get off the phone with the Developmental Pediarician, call a speech therapist near you and get the next available appointment for an evaluation and start therapy as soon as they can get you in.

Next, call Spring ISD and tell them you have a child who you suspect has a disablity and ask for them to give you the name and address of the person you need to contact for an evaluation and to send you a copy of your rights under IDEA and section 504 of the Rehabilitation act. She does not qualify for the home service, which ends at age 3, and your local school district has an afirmative obligation to find all children with disablities who live within their boundaries, make it clear that you are notifiying them that your daughter is suspected of having a disablity. Send a letter today or tomorrow to that person and request a meeting to discuss an evaluation and sign consent to evaluate. Tell them you would like to have this meeting within 10 school days, which may be a problem because school is probably out in Texas. This may have to wait unitl fall, but that is a same. See what you can do to schoose an evaluation over the summer. There will probably be one school in your district where they hold extended school year services, and if you are lucky, they will have a diagnostician who can evaluate her. When you have the meeting to request testing, get a full speech and language evaluation, IQ and academic evaluations and an OT consult if you think that there are any fine or gross motor deficits. Stay on them for completion of this evaluation, make her available for them when they ask, and call every week until it is scheduled. They have 60 days to complete the evaluation, which will put you into the fall, especially if they start counting from the first day of school next year. Try your best to get it sooner.

One thing you should know straight away, public services will not be everything your child needs. They may be free, but they are only required to make your child "functional" and you want more than that, so always supplement with as much private therapy as you can possibly get. The sooner you do, the better. What ever you have to do, get as much therapy as you can now. The only thing you will have that is free, is time, and age 4 is a little late to be starting out. You should be fruious with your pediatrician for letting this go until age 4. It is inexcusible quite frankly, but all too common. I don't mean for you to panic, but you really need to act now.

I knew that something was not right with my oldest child, but everyone around me told me not to worry, including my pediatrician. That was a huge mistake. I won't tell you much about my oldest except this, her younger sister has the same issues, and we caught hers 2.5 years eariler, and it has made a huge difference in her prognosis. Waste no time.

Good luck, write me back if you have more questions. I worked many years as an advocate in your neck of the woods.

M.

J.,
DON'T hit the panic button but DO talk to his pediatrician about it. Was your ped concerned at his 3 or 43 yr old well child check? Call them and at least talk to the nurse. They can refer you for a speech evaluation. Speech therapists can come right to your house and work with him. Even an hour of therapy per week can make a very large impact. Don't be afraid to reach out for help. all kids need help in O. form or another and it's my belief that all kids have some sort of "issue" no matter how small/. It's better to know what is going on and get him help to get him over this speed bump! The "not knowing" and "wondering" is way worse than dealing with what you can! best of luck!

My 3 year old is the exact same. He still cannot communicate so we have him lined up with a developmental pedi...which by the way was 10 months from the day it was made...so make sure you make that appt ASAP. After you make an appointment ask if there are any ways to get him in earlier...like a day to call for any cancellations that toher poeple have made. For us we were told to call every thursday for possible cancellations and an earlier appointment day. See if he can get in to see a speech therapist. Also call your school distict, like all of the other mothers have said before me...he may be able to go into the 3-4 yr old program for special needs.

**If your pediatrician wasnt concerned about his lack of words my advice would be to switch to a pediatrician who is more involoved and would notice. I did and that was key. Good luck!

See your pediatrician for a referral. He may need some speech therapy, which has worked wonders for many of my friends' kids. Some have autism, some just a delay, but all had great success with therapy. The earlier the better so you should do it soon. If your doctor doesn't give the referral I would get a new doctor.

My 4 year old wasn't speaking and my 3 year old would speak but I couldn't understand her. The speech pathologist with ECI prior to their third birthdays had said that they didn't qualify for assistance. I took them off of gluten (found in wheat and barley) and the non speaker is fine now after a few months of being on a strict no wheat diet. The other one we can now understand, but her speech still isn't perfect. I'm going to take her to a private speech pathologist and see if she can teach me how to help my daughter, because the insurance wouldn't pay for services and I can't afford them on a weekly basis.

As for the school district, I know too may people who got locked into the No Child Left Behind law. If they determine your child has a special need then if they want the child on meds or don't want you to homeschool or whatever the deal is where you disagree with the school, they can take you to court and try to get the judge to order you to do what they want. I don't say this to scare you, just want to caution you to be careful. When my 5 year old niece was failing school and having a lot of problems with her teacher, my sister decided to homeschool her and although schools can't legally say NO, No Child Left Behind gives them license to say NO when the child has been determined to have special needs.

I hope everything is fine, but if there is a problem I hope you find him some help!

S.

I would take your son to your local school district and ask for an special education assessment in the area of speech and language. School districts are responsible for kiddos starting at 3 years old. Don't delay and don't let the idea of a special education assessment scare you - your child may just need some speech therapy and like other posters stated, the therapy works wonders and the earlier your child receives it the better.

What did your pediatrician say at your son's 4 year check up? I would bring it up to him if you haven't yet? I think kids are supposed to be speaking in complete sentences by then....although, I have been around several boys that at three still weren't even talking yet. Good luck! I'm sure everything is okay.

I agree with checking with the pediatrician. Do you read to/with him daily? How much talking do the two of you do together like asking him to find things or what something is. Does he spend time with other kids? I don't know if he goes to daycare part time or not, but it might be a good time to start so he can get the interaction. It could just be that he can but doesn't because he doesn't have to. Maybe when he asks for something or responds to a question make him use full sentences. He might need a speech therapist to help get him up to speed before kindergarden. Good luck.

J.,
I am speaking from experience here: my son's need for speech therapy was not caught at his 3-yr checkup but at his 4-yr checkup. First of all I want to assure you that your child can have a bright future (although my son's speech was unintelligible then, he is soon graduating with a Master's Degree and entering the professional world!) Start PRIVATE speech therapy NOW and continue it even if you do use the public school therapy- much more progress is made in private therapy, school therapies are often in groups. Another thing to consider is occupational therapy for handwriting. It is common, particularly among boys, to have handwriting issues along with a need for speech therapy. You could work on this at home with Handwritng Without Tears, a fabulous handwriting curriculum which is often used by therapists and is quite inexpensive and easy to learn. I can recommend Winter Pediatric Therapy which has several locations in the Houston area, although there are surely speech therapists closer to your home. (In all these years I've never met a speech therapist I didn't like.) Good luck to you and your little man!

My son is only 7 months old so I don't have experience with speech with him yet but my Fiance' who is now 32 was almost totally silent and didn't speak until he was about 4 or maybe even older and his parents were very worried, they thought he was developementally delayed. They figured out that his older brother would answer for him so he didn't really try to talk too much. Now he is very intellectual and actually you can't shut him up. :) so I wouldn't be too worried, I would just work on it with him every day.

My grandson just turn 5 years old and he is going to speech therapy, when he was 2 years old seems like he could talk and I don't know what happen, when he was 3, he had trouble talking, his parents have taken him to his doctor and the doctor told them give him time he will eventually start talking. Now at 5 he still has trouble talking. I pray that one day he will start talking. I do lots of research on the internet to see what is wrong with him. Everything is fine with him, he is real smart, and very intelligent. I'm with you, I don't know what to do. I'm sure your son will eventually start talking.

My little girl (who isn't so little anymore wasn't talking by almost 3. I called our local Easter Seals program and they came to my house evaluated her. It was free and easy. Its been a number of years but you can call to see if they still offer the services. Good luck.

We have a great orginization in our County called BACH,The Brazoria County Association for Citizens with Handicaps. My friend had a son who was 3 and had a speech problem, and they had him tested, and then sent a therapist to work with him weekly. It ended up being free! They take whatever insurance will pay, and find scholarship for people who need it. I'm sure if you contact them, they might have a sister organization in your area. BTW... my friend's son was FINE by the time he started Kindergarten... they were awesome!
http://www.bacheci.org/

For a question like this, the more information you can provide, the better advice/help you will get. For instance, can you give an example of how he speaks? How many words does he string together? Has he met all of his other developmental milestones? Not talking much at four could be indicative of so many things--from a hearing problem to autism spectrum disorder and plenty of things in between. Or it could be that he is behind in that one area of development and will eventually catch up with his peers. If it is something that concerns you, you should mention it to your pediatrician and have him evaluated by an occupational therapist.