DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

I've posted before about the fact that DS doesn't say much and that the doctor told me at his 15 month appointment that if he wasn't saying 10 words by the time of his 18 month appointment that he would send him for speech evaluation. After posting about it on the boards I got a lot of helpful advice from you ladies and some FM's from some of you that are speech therapists. A lot said not to worry and that I should wait. In the end I decided to wait until after he turns 2. Well we went to the doctor yesterday and I was prepared to tell him that I was not going to take DS to get evaluated. But DS is 19 months now and it turns out that he is saying between 10-15 words. Granted he's not saying them 24/7 but he does say them from time to time. There are also words he's trying to say but can't say them. Like for instance when I tell him to say "grandpa" he goes "Appa" He's calling DH papa instead of Dada which is fine. And hey he's even got 1 italian word that he's saying. He says "Aqua" intead of water...Yesterday we were watching Little Einsteins and there was a scene where Rocket transformed into a boat cuz they were on the wather and DS was like "Aqua". Today they did this episode where there was a car race and when he saw the cars he was like "beep beep, beep beep" and he was cracking up...

He has improved some in his speech and like I said I'm not against taking him for speech therapy but I do want to wait until he's 2. I just wanted to say thank you for all your advice...

Message edited 1/16/2008 12:03:41 PM.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

I'm glad he's doing well!

If I were in the same situation, I would make a similar decision. I would wait until 2 years.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Posted by pmpkn087

I'm glad he's doing well!

If I were in the same situation, I would make a similar decision. I would wait until 2 years.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

I'm glad things seem to be improving with him.

I'm not a speech therapist but wanted to add that understanding is a small portion of the battle. For my nephew, it was problems annunciating words. They gave him excercises to do (using a straw, etc) that were very helpful. The turn around was amazing - and the evaluation is completely free.

I completely respect your decision, but if you don't mind me asking, why would you wait?

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Because he may be saying more by the time he's 2, and i've also heard that some places won't even evaluate him at 18 months (Although he's 19 months)

Part of me feels that under 2 is a little young to be taking him for evaluations. I'm not against speech therapy i'm all for it but I just don't want to do it now. I have no problems waiting until after he's turned 2.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Sounds like he is starting to take off. My son was a late talker and had less than 10 words at 18 mos and is almost 3 now and is talking a lot (now I worry about annunciation but we shall see). It was right around 24-25mos when he started talking. I am not one to rush them either. Esp since he receptive language was highand I could see he was very smart. I think some kids just do things at different speeds and some need more time and I never felt the need to do anything before 2. I felt it was fine to wait it out as well and my dr agreed and sure enough poof - he did it. I think 2ish is the pivotal age and I talked to a few speech pathologists and they said similar. I hope his progress continues and you don't have any concerns.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Hello,
My now 2 year old son Daniel has been recieving speech therapy for about three months now.He was not saying much like your son by his 15 month check up.I told his DR. my concern and he suggested we have him evaluated.In my opinion it would not hurt, but it also came me the peace of mind to know that it was nothing more serious.
He has improved soooo much and now he communicates more instead of just pointing.I am very happy with the decision to have him evaluated.
He recieves therapy twice a week and he loves it!!

Hope that everything turns out well for you and baby.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Glad he is doing better with the speech!

DS will be 2 this month and does not say anything.. only dada if I ask him to. We had him evaluation at 21 months, he did not qualify for services as his level of understanding is very high. So if no words by 2, which there is not, I have to call them back. I am sure that he will qualify now for therapy, which I am happy about because 1. it's free and my tax dollars are paying for it, 2. if he needs it, they are the professionals that can work with him better than I can.

Each child develops differently and in the grand scheme of things, they will all be talking at, lets say, 4 years old, so does it really matter if they started at 1 or 2? Thats how I like to think about it. Also, I think we sometimes compare our children to other children on this site, which can be a bad thing. Some kids are very advanced and we tend to compare out little ones to them, but, like I said, each one is different and will get there eventually.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

We went through something very similar. Not saying much at 16 months, got him evaluated but they wanted to wait 3 months. At 19 months, he was definitely saying a lot more and when they re-evaluated him they decided to provide services.

He started therapy once a week since he was 22 months. He's 2.5 now and is doing fantastic. His therapist said that he has fallen below the min requirement for services now, but she'll continue working with him until he's 3.

Go with your gut.

ETA: DS's comprehension was always good. He would do everything you asked him to do, he just wouldn't say much.

Message edited 1/16/2008 4:37:20 PM.

Re: DS and his speech situation...(a little long, sorry)

Thats all good news! Noah has just turned two and he is coming on a treat...his vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds!!