speaking delay

[parentalb]

My son is almost four year old (three more months). He still is not speaking as he is expected for his age. He wants to speak for many things, to tell, but mos of his words we cant understand (he refers to Spiderman as "staben", even that he can say Spiderman, if he tries). We went to therapist and he has eliminated autism, brain damage, hearing impairment and all other typical things. Aside of this, my son seems quite intelligent. He understands quickly new ways to play, has very good memory, can learn song, can explain whole feature animated movie if he watched only once. But, we mainly we understand him because we watched the movie together and he uses body language and mimic together with language. Also, therapist stated that if my son he doesn’t make any advances until he is four, than we have to stimulate him.
Is there anything that my therapist may have missed? Or is there anything I can do to help my child?



This discussion is related to My child is 27 months old and doesn't speak yet.

[jdtm]

Try googling this phrase "developmental apraxia" or "verbal apraxia" or similar phrases to see if your son's speech habitis are similar to those in the descriptions.  I know a young child who is five years old and his speech habits are similar to those of your son.  He started speech therapy at two years of age but as yet, no formal diagnosis has been given.  His parents believe he is apraxic - the speech therapy has helped tremendously and he is doing so well.  If I understand this disorder correctly, the child is capable of understanding and communicating - it is just that the "path" from the brain to the mouth does not work as well as it should, and so the words come out "garbled".  Any other suggestions ....