4 year old diagnosed with speech disorder

cynder

4 year old male verbal IQ 65 non verbal IQ 98


His speech and language assessment has just been completed with low results, he scored between 54 and 71 on all tests (54 being the lowest and 71 being the highest). I dont have the report in my hand yet. The slp told me he has a severe speech and language disorder.

So he has been diagnosed with a specific speech disorder, ASD ruled out but ? remains over ADHD.

Just wondering if anyone else has been diaganosed with something simular/ or your child has been diagnosed with something simular and what can i expect?

thanks

Satts

Just seen your post today, has he started speech theraphy ? If so, how is he getting on ?

Approximately how many single words has he ?

Can he say any two(or more) word sentences ?

Does he communicate in other ways ?

I presume with a non-verbal IQ of 98 he can understand what people are saying very well ?

cynder

yep he is saying 3 word sentences now, his been in speech therapy for just over 2 years.
single words has about 60 (probably less)

will communicate non verbally shows, points to what he wants/needs, he also has hand signals which he made up himself.

Got a speech assessment done the other day and he is in the 1st percentile for expressive/receptive and phonological speech.

Waiting to see if he will get resource hours and sna due to behavoial issues.

He doesn't understand very well and has to be given visual clues. They are putting in place a visual schedule for when he starts school, they have thins in place at preschool and it help him make the transition between different tasks.

He speech itself is poor and only some words we can make out, he has problems with word clusters and end consonant sound.

He has low attention and high activity so thats proving hard in trying to teach him. He has the potential to reach the non verbal IQ of 98, if we can conquer his low attention span.


Questions we are asking has he got low attention because he doesnt have a clue what were saying?

Satts

How often does he go to speech theraphy ?
We found a big improvement when we changed from once a month to once a week.

We also have a scrap book which we bring to speech theraphy and the theraphist glues in visual clues for the new words he is to learn.

Have you tried fish oils to see if his attention will improve ?
We use a brand called "eye q" we got it in Boots.
It contains a high EPA omega 3 fish oil and evening primrose oil ( omega 6)
We were also recommended a high EPA fish oil called MorEPA, but we haven't tried it yet.

Has he had an assessment with an occupational theraphist ?
May be worth it to examine his sensory profile.

Has he had a hearing test ?

cynder

He has speech therapy once a week, psychologist once a week and early intervention educator once a week one on one (was in group but now he is having one on one blocks).

Hearing test fine, OT assessment said he has issues but nothing that significantly impacts his day to day life.

Never tried fish oils, might be worth looking into.

He has a word book, its mainly for end sounds, ca is cat, bow is boat, e is egg and so on. makes him very hard to understand, the SLP wants him to learn to pronounce end sounds before we introduce new words. so every week its the same over and over this has been going on since November and we are still nowhere near him making end sounds of his own accord. he can force and end sound if he wants to or remembers but they arent flowing form his mouth, its very hard work for him. For 6 sessions in a row he even refused to enter the SLP's office and we had to go home, she then did sessions at home where he was batter but did take off now and then one time he went up to brush his teeth, came down and started again.

They say he needs sensory input to give him a break, this is going to be fun at school, he will have to have a break from the classroom every 5 mins. sensory input being, sitting in a bean bag/running around/lying in a blanket/eating/drinking/ lifting heavy objects/ going outside for a walk/ colouring and so on.

Pyscologist thinks that his brain is scambled and he find it hard to put it into order, if we use visual clues it help sort it out.

Oh yes school is going to be fun (if he doesnt get an sna).

how old is your child?

Satts

Our child is 3 years + 4 months.

At 3 years had about 5 words. With the weekly speech theraphy is up to over 40 words now, 4 months later.
Not a large word count, but a huge improvement since Christmas.

We have to brake down each word in to syllables.
Also visual cues help.
e.g. To get the word Banana. Our child could say Baa for sheep and Nana for Grandmother so the Speech Therapist put a picture of a sheep in the scrapbook and got us to put in a picture of a Grandmother beside it. She would ask what the pictures are and our child would say "Baa" for the sheep and "Nana" for grandmother and when said close to each other it comes out as "Banana"

Has the speech therapist shown you tongue exercises called "MR. Tongue", we found it good to get certain sounds like "O" and "Puh" and "Ta", may help with words that end in "T", e.g Owe---Ta = Out.

I know word endings is important, but I feel it is just as important to keep increasing his word count, even just one or two each session.
I think it's time to try another speech therapist. Not much progress since November.
6 or 7 months on the one track with not much sucess, something has to change, either the therapist or the therapist's approach.
Don't cancel the one your with just yet, but try another one for one or two go's to see is there any improvement, a different personality may make a big difference. I know what it's like on the road almost every day seeing all the different people, but one or two trips more to find the "right" speech therapist may make a big difference.

Also, definitely look in to high EPA fish oils.

CookieMonster.x

I know it may be a bit late to post but I had bad speech problems when I was a child. I was a late speaker and literally, no one could understand what I said.
I was in speech therapy for a while (not sure how long) but then I went to a school with a special unit for speech problems for half a year and it really really improved me! I could talk properly after that.
I know that he is different to how I was and I know that it may have nothing to do with it but you could ask the speech therapist about a special unit. They still do all the school things but you have speech therapy more often and there is more emphasis on talking properly etc. It may be beneficial to him and I'm sure he'd be in with a chance of getting in?
Hopefully it may be helpful, I really don't know whether it will be or not.

MrsGriff

My 5 year old has a speech disorder and has been diagnosed with dyspraixa which affects her speech more than anything else. Another name is developmental co ordination disorder. A great article to read is "she's bright but she can't write" it really explains the disorder. It is something to look into as there is no cause and is only now being recognized as a disorder.
My DD knows what she wants to say but she just can't verbalize it. She is in the high range for congnative reasoning but low range for verbalization. She has slight problems holding pens and a few other thing but it was missed by everyone except me for year.

Satts

MrsGriff wrote: »

A great article to read is "she's bright but she can't write" it really explains the disorder.

Where can I find this article ?

MrsGriff

Satts wrote: »

Where can I find this article ?

I got the name slightly wrong, here's the link.


http://canchild.ca/en/ourresearch/resources/TEC_DCD.pdf