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Child Behavior (Expert Forum)
3 yr old language/conversation delays
Answered by
Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D. - Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, Crisis Intervention
Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates
This forum is for questions and support regarding child behavior issues such: Child Discipline (behavior management), Normal Child Development, Parent-Child Communications, Social Development
3 yr old language/conversation delays
by 2brilliantbabies, Apr 21, 2006 12:00AM
Many thanks again for the guidance that I have received so far. Now, I need to ask a new question. My daughter, that I have been discussing previously, continues with her inability to answer open-ended questions and actively converse. Is this something that can be addressed adequately through speech/language therapy? Is there a larger problem that I am unaware of? Is there some kind of processing problem? At this point, we have discussed Autism and Asbergers, both of which I do not feel are the issue, unless I am misinformed. In all areas, beside conversation, she is a happy, healthy, loving little girl. She is very active, and but does have a somewhat short attention span. She maintains good eye contact, does not care what she wears, eats pretty much anything (if we can get her to sit at the table long enough), is very loving & empathetic. She doesn't have any unreasonable fears and is not a daredevil. She can be somewhat shy around new people. She does speak, answers most yes or no questions, sometimes she ignores us I think. If someone appears to have hurt themselves, she will run over and say "OK, (name of person)?" She uses please, thank you, and welcome at appropriate times. "C'mon (name of person).", "Let's go.", "Gimme", "Hey wook (look).", "Wook at dat!", "Whatcha doing?"; if we are going somewhere its "Go School", "Go see cows?", "Go town" or "Go find Daddy" (fill in with where ever we are going). She will sometimes speak to inanimate objects or toys..."Hi puzzle", "Hi rock." Generally though, she gets her needs/wants across through one or two word phrases. Instead of I want chocolate milk, its just "chocolate nilk (milk) please." Also at bedtime, its "Goodnite kiss." Never "I want" or "I need" or "Can I have" I try to get her to mimick me in speaking the correct way and using sentences, but she just echoes the last one or two words. She said, "Swing please." I said to her, "Audrey, say, I want to swing please." Again it comes out "Swing please." When I break it down into two words each: "I want" (she will repeat) "to swing please." (She will repeat.) Then I will put the whole sentence together and it is still "Swing please." If she is having a good time she will giggle and say "Hey this is fun." But if you ask her if she had fun, she will not answer. The doctor asked her questions like, "If you are hungry, what do you do?" (No answer.) "If you are cold, what do you do?" (No answer.) I thought maybe she was being shy, so when we got home, I asked her the same questions. No answer. Today she got into my wallet and found a picture. She looks down into my purse, "Hey its dark in dere." Pulls out her sister's picture and says "Dat's sissy in dat picture." (That's quite good for her, especially if unsolicited.) She likes doing flash cards, but again, it requires only a one word response. I have scheduled the first meeting for her speech eval. with the school on 4/27.
Doctor's Answer
by Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D., Apr 23, 2006 12:00AM
, Apr 23, 2006 12:00AM
The very recent anecdote you described (with the wallet) indicates that she is developing this aspect of language. Developing language skills, as you know, is a process. And, like other aspects of development, children proceed at different paces. Your daughter happens to be slower in her development of language skills than she is in other areas of development. However, while it is not unusual for a child to display various rates of developemnt in the various spheres of development, it does make sense to pursue the Speech/Language evaluation and therapy. From your various very detailed descriptions of your daughter's progress in various areas, I do not see her language behavior as indicative of any serious emotional condition. Could it be symptomatic of some type of learning disability? Yes, it is possible, and this will become clearer as she continues to grow. You can also pursue a pre-school evaluation through your local school system, since she is now 'aging out' of Early Intervention.
You sound somewhat similar to me, because I was afraid that it could be more than just a speech delay--but my gut told me that is all it was. (I was right, that is all it was)
What does YOUR gut tell you?
With so much talk of Autism, it is hard not to worry about it--I was. Your daughter is talking more than our son was at her age.
The progress he made in speech therapy was tremendous. Perhaps your daughter does not answer, because her expressive delay is preventing her from anwsering. Why say "I want milk please", when just saying "milk" gets results?
There a several kinds of delays: the 2 I know about are:
expressive--trouble articulating
receptive--trouble understanding speech
We knew our son had an expressive delay. But we could not tell if he had a receptive delay. Can your daughter follow simple instructions? If she can, then she is understanding you.
With the help of our speech therapist, we began using some sign language as triggers for speech. When he said "milk", we made the signs for 'I' 'want' and 'please'. This triggered him to say 'I want milk please' He had to say it before he got milk--and the next thing you know he started saying it on his own.
Had we not learned this from his speech therapist, we never could have come up with something so simple to help him. Speech therapy helped him, but also gave US the tools to help him.
Over time, he made tremendous progress and any irrational fear I had about some other delay evaporated.
Right now, your daughter is saying more than our son said at that age--meaning he had alot of words, but was not putting them together. What you describe sounds VERY similar to our son. He had speech therapy for 1 1/2 years. He did wonderfully, speaks beautifully now (alot better than some of his peers)--except he pronounces Kansas City as Cans of City...LOL
He is 6 years old and in kindergarten. I think once you get the evaluation, you will feel alot better.
Jenny
Our son had been in speech therapy for a few months and our therapist seemed to be frustrated with him. She asked her boss to sit in on a session and give his opinion. He felt our son needed a developmental evaluation--because of the 'way' he pronounced some words...
We refused. We knew nothing was wrong--and just so you know--that will become more apparent as speech progressives. For us, his speech was improving, communication was improving, we were feeling relieved and any fears we had were dissapating(I should say me, my husband never felt anything else was wrong. I was the only one worried).
We talked to our pediatrician about it and he told us to go with our gut. If we really felt that nothing else was wrong, then we were probably right to turn down the developmental eval.
It turns out that we were right. Nothing else was wrong. Our son also knew his ABC's and counting etc. He was very bright. He had no other delays that we could see. He did not fit into the autism symptoms--except his speech was delayed.
My point is that they had seen him for months and wanted a developmental evaluation and they were mistaken--how could anyone possibly diagnosis a child in 45 minutes?
For me, my husband was my anchor. I was so worried about so many different things being wrong, that I was very easily influenced by any little comment by a therapist or dr, or a list of symptoms on the web, or any little odd thing our son would do. My husband was the one telling me to calm down. I think I was so worried about it that I conveyed it to others--There really must be something to worry about here if she is so worked up.
Your daughter sounds smart and kind and very aware of the world around her. Just a little slow getting started talking. Someone told me, that once our son starts talking the way kids do, I'll be sorry. (they meant it jokingly in a nice way.)
I have never gotten tired of his little voice asking questions, telling me silly things...
Your evaluation is less than a week away. I think you will find that with the start of speech therapy, alot of your fears will go away too.
Good Luck to you
Jenny