My oldest son has a speech disorder and my second has a speech delay. I’ve spent so much time reading about speech and learning problems, and working with them, that I thought I would make a page with some of my insights. I’m “just a mom”, but I wish I had had “just a mom” who had been down a similar road to talk to when I was trying to figure out what to do with my children.
Warning: I can get a little cranky about this stuff.
If your kid is a late-talker, take a deep breath and turn off all the voices of concerned friends and family buzzing in your ear. Run away if you have to. Don’t read too many baby milestone charts. Don’t read too many baby magazine advice articles. Don’t listen to people who begin sentences with, “You need to…” Don’t assume that because your child has missed a milestone in speech that he or she is autistic. Don’t let anyone talk you into it.
If you have a concern, start observing your child. Look at some websites of different disorders, google some of the behaviors you observe. That is what I did, and I knew before two years old what my son’s disorder was – it took professionals until he was four to decide. Don’t do anything you feel is cruel or unusual to your child to make them talk just because the friends and family tell you to. Make careful observations for a few months and then if you still have concerns, go see a professional. Get a recommendation if you can. See if that pro has dealt with other children who have whatever difficulty you think your child may have. I was fortunate enough to have one pro tell me how little she knew about my son’s disorder – that she had gotten a degree and practiced for years without learning much about it. Not all pros will admit that their knowledge and experience is limited and refer you elsewhere. She did, and it taught me an important lesson about pros – they need to know when they don’t know something.
If at any time you find yourself talking to a pro who is not interested in the observations you have made as the parent, get up and walk out. Don’t be tempted to listen to another word. Don’t listen to someone who won’t listen to you. Don’t listen to someone who makes you feel like you are not qualified to make objective observations about your own child. Beware!! There are so many pros who just want to tell you to force your child to talk through any means necessary. If your child has certain problems, like apraxia of speech, that would be senseless torture. My child has apraxia of speech, and I was given advice by several people to “make him talk” by withholding things he wanted until he said them. I might as well have withheld them until he jumped over the moon.
Some books you can read to help you realize what a wide variety of problems there are out there:
Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn’t Fit In-When to Worry and When Not to Worry by Perri Klass and Eileen Costello
The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late by Thomas Sowell
My experience with apraxia of speech:
My biggest concern with my child when he was not talking was communicating with him somehow. We used sign language for a long time. If you look at your kid and know he wants to communicate in any way possible, find a way. When he couldn’t get the words out, we used gestures. I didn’t confine him only to speech when it was precisely speech that was out of the question for him. When using signs with him, I always used the words, too. My son moved out of signs into short words that he could produce – usually words like mama, dada, nana, etc. These he would use in a variety of different contexts for different meanings. For example, in the kitchen or at mealtime, “nana” meant “ice cream”, but at naptime or bedtime it meant “blanket”. He devised this system himself, and I used it as much as I could understand it. I never pretended to not understand my kid. There was enough genuine misunderstanding to not have to fabricate it. And kids know when you’re lying. Don’t lie to them and tell them you don’t understand when you both know that you do.
We saw several different therapists for therapy, but the only time I really felt my son made more improvement than he would have on his own was with a woman who had studied apraxia, had worked with kids with apraxia, and used the Kaufman Speech Praxis Treatment Kits. After watching her use them, I think we could have had just as much success if we had done them at home. They are pretty simple, but they are perfect for kids with apraxia. Another good resource I used at home with all three of my oldest together was Once Upon a Sound: Literature-Based Phonological Activities by Linda Smith-Kiewel and Tracy Molenaar Claeys.
Once my son was on his way to speaking clearly, my next concern was reading. Kids with speech delays and disorders tend to have problems with reading. Kids with apraxia of speech may also have trouble with fine motor skills, and thus handwriting. I read up on apraxia and learning to read. Here is a book I think is excellent for helping understand how kids learn to read:
Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution in Reading by Diane McGuinness.
“Revolution”? Well, alright. She’s trying to sell books, so we’ll let her call her book a revolution. Don’t let the title put you off; it is good. After reading it, I realized I needed to work with my son on auditory and phonological awareness. I bought Earobics, and have been very happy with it. He works as far as he can every few months, takes a break, and then comes back and does some more.
After he turned 5, he seemed ready to start learning to read. I had read Reading Reflex by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness, and had worked with him a little on basic sound/letter combinations. I read about Headsprout on a homeschool blog while googling apraxia and reading. I decided to try it. It’s not near perfect, and it is expensive, and toward the end it starts preparing kids for standarized testing (egh). But it’s workable. I wrote a long review of it on a since-defunct blog. If anyone is actually reading this, and would like to find out how I tailored it for my son, comment and I’ll explain further. I’ve received a lot of help, encouragement, and ideas from other homeschool blogs. I can’t imagine anyone reading mine; I’m kind of writing this page to myself five years ago.
My oldest is now 6.5 and reads absolutely everything. I can’t keep up with him. Any curriculum now would slow him down. I’m going to start my 4yo (with a speech delay), soon to be 5yo, on Headsprout for his 5th birthday.
Once he started reading, my next concern was handwriting. My son definitely has trouble with fine motor skills, and little desire to improve them. He doesn’t like to cut, color, draw, write, do crafts or art, etc. I have to assign coloring. We worked through some Kumon workbooks. He liked the Tracing book and the Maze books. Mazes were about the only thing I could get him to put pencil to paper for of his own free will. So we did a lot of mazes when he was young. Then, when he was 5, I ordered Handwriting Without Tears. It doesn’t live up to it’s name. However, it has worked really well for us. It’s taken about a year of steady use to get to the point now where we don’t have tears at handwriting time. When I give my son a choice of what subject to do first, he now says handwriting. (He used to choose everything else first.) I ordered basically everything they sell for pre-k and kindergarten and used it all a lot. I don’t know if that would be necessary for most kids, but it really helped my son with apraxia. My younger kids (4 & 3) know their letters now, too, really well! He is working at the appropriate level for his age, and his handwriting and attitude have improved leaps and bounds. I highly recommend HWOT.
So now my little toddler with all the problems and clouds of worry hanging around him has grown into a kid who can speak, read, and write like an average kid his age. He’s also an incredibly interesting and intelligent individual. I’m very happy we didn’t listen to the doomsayers and didn’t send him to school where he would have been labeled “special” for heaven knows how long.
My second son has a speech delay, rather than a specific disorder, and all the things I’ve done with my first have worked well for him. I don’t know how well they would work for other kids, but I spent many hours reading and researching and deciding what to buy with the little money we could spend. I hope this information I’ve posted can help spark an idea or just give encouragment to someone. I’ll respond to anyone interested in what I’ve posted.
