Hey imperfect mums just looking for some advice and tips!
My 4 year old son has speech delays pretty bad to the point where he doesn't say one word at kindy.. He sees a speechy and ot weekly they visit him at kindy!
Now for my question I'mlooking for some helpful tips and advice at home we play games with his other brothers to encourage speech I'm always encouraging him to use his words he doesn't point and I get it I make him use his words he is a very emotional child seems to be crying more than smiling and before everyone jumps on the autism bandwagon I'm confident my child does not have Austim! If his brothers annoy him instead of saying hey I don't likethat or something he will just sit there and cry I try to do my best in accomadting him but at the end of the day I'm exhausted and just wish he would speak and tell me what's wrong and I start getting frustrated...
Does anyone know of any good speech apps or anything that will help me help him?? I have 3 boys from birth he has always been my "easy" child he isn't a naughty boy he is a very gental caring soul thanks mummasxx
4 Replies
My daughter has a speech disorder. She was diagnosed when she just turned 3, she is now 7 and this is the first yr she hasnt been pulled out of school to go to speech therapy. If you live in wa your extremly lucky here we have public speech schools. Look up the Language Development Centre, you child is only aloud to attend a max of 3yrs here but its 3yrs well worth it. The therapy his getting now is that through the public system or private. I dont mean to be distespectful but in my experience the private therapist have always been better than the public. The therapist should be giving you games, flash cards, and new words to learn as home work each week. Your son isnt going to get better with only 30 mins of therapy once a week its the help he gets from the family at home that will help him get better.
I know it can be frustrating believe me theirs been lots of times ive sat up crying bcos i cant understand my daughter or she just wont try they get just as frustrated as we do at not being able to communicate. Its extremly hard. Their is light at the end of the tunnle tho i always wasnt sure if pushing my daughter so much with speech was the right thing to do but this year has shown it was right shes in yr 2 in main stream classes and an above average student. I dont think she would be where she is today if i didnt push her to succeed. Feel free to pm me if you have questions we have been where you are.
Give him lots and lots of opportunities to request highly desired items.
I used to keep a stock pile of my sons favourite lolly (speech was far more important at the time than diet). I'd get the packet out and rustle it but would only give him one lolly when he requested a lolly using his best level of speech he could. It worked wonders and I didn't care if asked for one lolly at a time 30+ times a day. Practice is practice. Of course we had to change the lollies, to toys to different foods, etc. we were quite obsessive about it. We'd hide parts of his favourite toys behind our backs so he would have to ask for the part to make his toy work.
Thank you ladies I have been down in dumps about his speech all day and I've just gotten of the phone to his threpiast who has said she feels she is doing more damage than good buy seeing him and feels that he has selective mutism so now I've booked a Dr appt and will get a referral to a child physcoligst.. We read loads of books play games with the flash cards try everything he does talk at home but his speech is very delayed.. I'm in qld but I will look into it and see if we have speech schools.. We are currently going through the public system we live rural so not a lot of options but I am willing to travel to the right person to help him .. Just at very big loss and it's great to hear I'm not the only one out there
Once you find a speechy that your child is confident with then they come along really quickly. We went through 3 different therapists before we found one that worked for us. I found the private speechy was more wilking to go out of their way to help rather than the public one. As their getting paid more. It cost us a small fortune to have the therapy but well worth it.