language delay and poor fine motor skills

My 3 year old child does not speak clearly. He has shown some improvement with speech therapy. He is also little clumsy. Other than these 3 issues he is a very happy, social and loving child. Out siders have difficulty understaning him. He seems quite sharp and intelligent. He plays well with other children, shares and takes turn. He cleans up the toy room. Follows all the instructions. In short he seems quite normal other than his speech and his clumsyness.

I sometimes wonder if he is lacking anything? Is he just slow and will catch up eventually or is there something wrong with him? How do I get him tested  and for what?

Any advise?

[NurseBillie]

Hello. My son is now 4 years old, however when he was 2 I started suspecting he was behind other children his age, especially with speech.  I contacted Early Intervention.  They came to my home and did an evaluation on him right in my living room.  They found that he did have some developmental delays.  This was in June '06 (he had turned 2 Feb. 28th) and he was enrolled in the preschool program August '06, he went 2 days a week for 2 1/2 hours.  He even went for several weeks over the summer.  He now goes 4 days a week for 3 1/2 hours and next year will go 4 days a week for 7 hours.  

I still think he is very much behind other children his age and this is especially difficult for me sometimes because my boyfriend's daughter that is the same age as my son is very much ahead of most kids their age.  I would recommend getting him enrolled in a preschool or headstart program, they do exercises with him that I would have never even thought of.  And even though I still believe he is behind he has very much improved.  A lot of my family members comment on how much better they can understand him, especially lately.  

It was probably one of my better decisions deciding to call Early Intervention as soon as I felt he wasn't reaching his milestones.  My son was born early and I always thought this may be a possibility.  My best advise would be to follow your instincts and if you think he needs extra help do what you can to get it for him.  I would contact your local school system and find out if they can come do testing on your child.  Plus because my son qualified for services they also provide transportation to and from the school, which works out perfect for us because I drop him off at a home daycare at 5:30am.  The bus goes right to her house and picks him up.  There are speech therapist that come into his class room on a daily basis and work one on one with him. The everyday improvement still amazes me.  

My son also lacks some of the fine motor skills, he still hasn't shown which is his dominant hand, if he's drawing on the right side of the paper he uses his right hand, if he's drawing on the left side of the paper he uses his left hand, he still uses two hands to cut with scissors, and holds his crayons in a fist instead of the tripod grasp.  Definely don't ignore the things you are noticing, some people think "they'll eventually catch up".  This is not always true, get him the extra help now.