Help With Very Delayed Speech

[Guest]

Hi there

A friend of mine has a daughter who has recently married and now has a five year old stepson with very special needs. He attends a special school, which she seem very supportive but do not seem to help her enough in this area. When he was three the family were told that he would likely never speak. At that time all speech was, was a constant low hum sound. The family have done wonders with him, He understands a lot more.He is saying some sounds that can be construed as words now and mum is mimicking back and making the link with context. I have suggested immersing him with vocalising lots of sounds and playing with them-lots of repetition, small sentences, and generally stuff she would do with her own son of one year old.

Has anyone any ideas, or any link to more specific information? Thanks

[Guest]

We have had a child in our nursery setting this year (3year old) who came to us with no speech, very few vocal sounds and very little desire to communicate.

A lot of the advice we were given is common sense stuff and relates to how you would naturally support a younger child who was at that stage of communication.

*use his name first to secure attention

*Encourage child to look at you, use physical prompts such as pointing to your eye and get down to his level

* Break down language used to talk to child to 1-2 key words and use visual cues such as objects, pictures and gesture to aid his understanding

* Model and comment using single words during play activities. Follow child’s line of interest.

* Use intensive interaction strategies with child (follow appropriate noises, actions) to help child engage in activities with an adult.

* Encourage turn-taking activities

* Use nursery rhymes and encourage child to join in for singing activities

* Encourage child to make a greater range of vocalisations – copy noises such as animal sounds.

 

We have recently used PECS with great success and also use signing in our setting. Although parents can initially be worried by suggestion of using pictures or signs to communciate they have both actually been proven to support children on the journey to spoken communication.

 

The little boy we are working with now uses a mixture of pictures, signs and some words.

 

The PECS site gives some information and I know there is a very set way of introducing it to children in special schools - we adapted it to make it work for us as a setting and for the parents at home - let me know if you would like to know more about how we got started.

[Guest]

It sounds as though you have already given her some very good advice. Repeated sound games are what I would have suggested. Games such as "ready, steady, go" are good for prompting children with speech delay to join in with verbalisation. Does she know/use Makaton? If not, tell her to contact the speech therapist to learn more. Often, when a child's confidence is improved through signing, they will feel more secure in using the words alongside the sign, and in time, will naturally stop signing and use words only.

 

Of course, without knowing the child, and his specific needs, it is impossible to know what impact this level of intervention will have. It may be that he has specific difficulties in making certain sounds. Is he receiving speech therapy at school? If not, tell your friend to ask why not. If he is, tell her to ask to speak with the speech therapist who should be able to tell her more.

[Guest]

Lots of good ideas already. I want to echo NicNac's thoughts on Makaton. I have begun using it this year with a child in my class who has Down Syndrome. It seems from the research into Makaton that it fires the same areas in the brain as speech does, therefore thought to actively stimulate speech, rather than, as some people assume, replacing it. A fun area to access Makaton is through Something Special (Mr Tumble) on CBBC. If you look on Cbeebies website there is an area dedicated to the programme where you can see clips, play games, print off symbols and signs. It might be helpful. As some of the signs are very iconic they can be useful with a variety of children with delayed speech eg ESL.

 

Good luck to your friend.

 

AOB

[alis2son]

I have lots of great sites for speech and language:

 

http://www.kidspeech.com/

http://www.comeunity.com/disability/speech/

http://www.ican.org.uk/TalkingPoint/Frontpage.aspx

http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/devel1.htm

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/SLDs.html

http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/lectures.htm

http://home.unilang.org/main/index2.php

http://www.herring.org/speech.html

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/txresources.html

http://www.lburkhart.com/links.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyour...esttyblist.html

http://www.cfw.tufts.edu/topic/5/99.htm

http://www.babyzone.com/toddler_preschoole...e_communication

http://www.askbaby.com/infant-speech-development.htm

http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/So...munication.html

http://www.afasic.org.uk/pub.htm

http://www.readingrockets.org/professionals/asha

http://www.leomagan.com/site/1388174/page/737357

http://www.pecs.com/WhatsPECS.htm

 

Hope they are of some help. Ali. x

[Guest]

This is what is so great about this site. Everyone is so helpful. I was particularly interested in the comment about Makaton because she has been advised by someone not to .She has paid for a course and has tried to use it. I will suggest she contacts school about their specific next steps with him. I know she has talked about speech therapy with him, but it seems as there are very few in the county and they are spread too thinly around.

Meanwhile thanks everyone -great suggestions