Hi everyone,

Allie has had a recent loss of speech (I know, the A word looms). She gets some words, then loses them, then some of them come back, but not all of them. For about 2 weeks or so, she would just do mmmmmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmmmm which scared me greatly. But, the babbling is back and mom and mama are back, which is reassuring to me.

Anyway, Allie is getting early intervention therapy now for her fine motor skill delay and eating problems (Occupational Therapy). We also have a teacher coming out 2 times per month, but I'm not sure what she really does. The developmental pediatrician we saw at the University of Michigan wanted Allie to also get speech therapy. Allie is 15 months, and the teacher from EI says that Allie is a little too young for speech therapy. Is this true? She said that Allie needs to learn to mimic our words and sounds, which she does not do for the most part. She said once we get there, she can get therapy, at around 2 years old.

So, is this true? Is Allie too young or should I demand speech therapy? For those of you with kids in speech therapy, what do the therapists do?

Thanks,
Christyn

In my opinion speech therapy at 15 months is NOT too young. Eliana was evaluated Dec 05 (13 months old) and started speech and occupational therapy end of Jan 06 (14 months old).

At the age of 2 Eliana still has a 25% delay in speech and a 20% delay in gross motor. Will all Eliana's health issues this is what caused her delay in speech and motor skills. She had issues with feeding and fine motor and those are fine now.

Eliana turned 2 on Nov 14, 06.

Eliana's ST does alot with her and I owe her so much. Eliana has only really been starting to talk since Oct 06 (23 months old). Had we not gotten the therapy she wouldn't be talking now.

How many words even if partial does she say now? Where in MI are you? I'll be in MI for the holidays...if you are not too far maybe we can get togther and talk speech therapy. I'll be in Rochester Hills MI from Dec 22-Jan 2



Good Luck!!!! It's never to early to worry about speech.

Thanks so much for responding. I live in Grand Blanc, but work in Bloomfield Hills (not too far from Rochester). I work full time, but may be able to swing meeting up for lunch one day next week? Let me know if you could do that.

Allie used to say up, mama, dada, ball, block (not clear, but it was clear that she was referring to a block), ni-ni (night-night) and one more word which I can't think of now. She has lost mama twice, and has got it back twice. I haven't heard up, dada, ball or block for some time. Ni-night was her most recent word but I haven't heard that in about two weeks. She understands us very well - i.e. she will go get me a diaper when I ask her, and does her flash cards exremely well.

What types of things does your speech therapist do?

Thanks,
C

I don't think that 15 months is too young at all. They can do oral motor exercises that can prepair her for speach. There is a lot more that they can do then just have the kids repeat sounds. Can you get EI to send out a ST to assess her at least and see what they think?

Catherine's speech therapist mostly sits on the floor and plays with her. She does a lot of repetition of sounds, singing, stuff like that. She is also constantly touching her to work on her sensory issues. All you can really do with these kids is try to model correct speech and hope that they'll mimic. It's not like they really understand "Try to say ______." Catherine started speech therapy at 18mo, and she now has a pretty sizeable single word vocabulary. Her goal when we started was 10 correctly and consistently used words by age 2. At 23mo, she probably has a 40-50 word vocabulary. But she still does not "get" putting two or more words together. I'm not sure how to encourage that skill other than continuing to model it for her.

My two cents ... I do not think speech therapy for really young toddlers has any value. Her ST, as much as I like her and she's a valuable sounding board for me, doesn't do anything that I wasn't already doing. At $105 an hour, I guess I expected something more.

You're Welcome! I'd be happy to meet with you next week for lunch. I've got some things that Eliana's ST had suggested to do with her at home besides her ST sessions. She does recommend REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT.

Even if Allie only says a partial word praise her for it then say the word correctly. Eliana says a lil boys name Landon and the first time she said it as lan. The I said yes Landon. It's so hard to think off the top of my head what the ST does. I'll be going home for lunch today and will grab my ST book. I will make copies for you.

Eliana has come along way in the past 11 months going from a 40% delay to a 25% delay. It does take time I will tell you that. I know that besides reflux Allie has DGE. Eliana has DGE as well. And has been pretty much congested for 2 years. Now with the new pedi we are getting on track. Eliana as well understands everything. Allie understanding you is a great sign.

Eliana was re-evaluted last week with First Steps (early intervention here in IN). The ST that was part of the evaluation said although she was sick and could hear you doesn't mean it was clear sounding. Although she understands everything she didn't hear it good enough to repeat it. Hope this makes sense. It's so hard to write what I mean sometimes especially to do with Eliana/speech/reflux/health issues.

Thanks so much for responding. I live in Grand Blanc, but work in Bloomfield Hills (not too far from Rochester). I work full time, but may be able to swing meeting up for lunch one day next week? Let me know if you could do that.

Allie used to say up, mama, dada, ball, block (not clear, but it was clear that she was referring to a block), ni-ni (night-night) and one more word which I can't think of now. She has lost mama twice, and has got it back twice. I haven't heard up, dada, ball or block for some time. Ni-night was her most recent word but I haven't heard that in about two weeks. She understands us very well - i.e. she will go get me a diaper when I ask her, and does her flash cards exremely well.

What types of things does your speech therapist do?

Thanks,
C

Hi there,

My 16 month old son is in speech therapy, not for GI related issues however. He was born deaf and now has a cochlear implant. I just wanted to say that your son is definitely NOT too young for speech therapy. I would seek another opinion or ask for a different therapist.

-Heather

hey again...
I had to type that while keeping the baby out of the X-mas tree, I see that you wanted to know what they do in therapy. My son is learning to listen, so they play with toys and talk about the words, they enunciate carefully and do lots of repetition. He isn't in a mimicking stage yet as he's only been hearing for 2 months, but it's a very play oriented approach and he always enjoys himself.

Best of luck,
Heather

I agree that you should get a 2nd opinion because 15 months may not be "too young" for therapy. (I don't understand how whoever told you that she needs to be doing XYZ doesn't think that Speech Therapy would/could help her get to that point faster!)

My 2YO (almost 29 months), Jack, is currently in Speech Therapy for an hour every Tuesday. He was never diagnosed with reflux, but now that we have a GERDling, we think Jack just went undiagnosed because he was a first baby and his symptoms weren't all that severe. (He was labeled "colicky" and a "spitty baby".) Anyway, he was never a "talkative" baby...didn't really coo or babble, but he was always very advanced physically. However, I started getting concerned around 18 months when he didn't have very many words that he used or repeated consistently, and his enunciation of the words he was using wasn't very good. We took him to see our Ped around 22 months when his vocabulary and/or enunciation wasn't really improving and our Ped just advised us to keep monitoring his progress and we'd re-evaluate at his 2-year checkup.

There still wasn't much improvement at that point, so our Ped agreed that we should get some intervention. So we got the ball rolling at the end of this past July when Jack turned 2, but he didn't start seeing the Therapist until October (another story for another day). Of course, by the time he started seeing the Therapist things had started "clicking" and his vocabulary was really ramping up and his speech was getting much clearer. But he still wasn't really using 2-word phrases and would still "grunt and point" to communicate, so he was just considered to have a "mild" delay. But the improvement since he's been working with the Therapist has been AMAZING! We can actually carry on simple but complete CONVERSATIONS with him now! And he cracks us up at least once a day EVERY day with some new thing that he'll say providing insight to his funny little mind!

And *all* the Speech Therapy does (like another poster said), is "play" with Jack for an hour, using toys and songs and flashcards and lots of eye contact to make sure Jack watches how she forms words. (It's also helped curb some of the behavioral problems we started encountering once Michael was born because someone gets to "play" with him ONE ON ONE for a WHOLE HOUR, UNINTERRUPTED, each week.) Oh, and Jack had also had a hearing screening performed as part of this whole process since one of the Evaluators thought his enunciation problems might have been from fluid in his ears. But the screening came back fine...no fluid.

But now that he's made such leaps and bounds in such a short amount of time, we wish we had actually started the ball rolling sooner; because we almost feel like we've "missed out" on a few months that he could have been talking to us earlier!

Emma has been receiving speech therapy since she was 9 months old....she was not babbling or cooing. She is now at least starting to babble (and some words do sound like a real word). The therapist she has had for the past 3 weeks is the most awesome guy...he even got her an oral vibrator to help with her low oral sensation.

I can't see how an EI person said 'too young'.....Early intervention is for ages 0-3. If they are not meeting a milestone and show about a 30% delay in some of the speech areas, they are eligible. Call your EI office and ask for an evaluation if you are worried.

Gosh, D had already seen three different speech therapists before he was two. One focused primarily on his eating, one focused on eating and speech, and the other one was only for speech. The one who did speech only told us D could not be evaluated for articulation (our big concern at the time) until he was two.

Because of D's cleft, all of his doctors and specialists were looking for signs that he'd need speech therapy, but i still don't think it's unusual to start before age two.

Christyn,

I am big fan of early intervention and I don't think it is ever too early... especially if there are concerns with Allie's development and her losing her speech. James has been in PT and OT since 10 mos. and speech since 11 mos. Initially he was started in speech since he wasn't babbling and was starting with his feeding problems. Since last March, he has made little progress in his speech, but our therapist has found many other problems and are now addressing those. She currently has James working with a chewing tube (to work on his muscles) and vibrating tools to help with the sensory issues. We know James speech won't progress until the underlying problems are fixed.

We have also worked on teaching James sign language. The therapist currently does a lot of repition of words with James (like we do at home) and plays with him. We only see her one hour a week right now, but she is an excellent guide for us. She always give us suggestions as to what to work on at home.

We are also trying to get James into another speech therapy clinic at a local university to see if they could work more on speech and his current therapist could work more on feeding. Our insurance will only allow so much and our therapist can only do so much in that one hour a week.

I know we have talked at length about my daughter and the whole autism thing. Jessie started all her therapies at 20 mos. old and I have heard the praises of her teachers, principal, therapists, etc. on what a difference early intervention made in her case.

It won't hurt to ask if Allie is eligible for services... if that is what you feels she needs. All they can say is no. I guess having traveled down the whole speech therapy road before, I saw it work with Jessie and I know it will work with James. I just don't want to wait... I feel he gets further behind everyday especially since he still isn't really babbling or saying anything.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Thanks everyone.

I called the EI people today (Allie is already getting EI for her eating and fine motor skill delays) and they said that in our county, speech therapy does not start until the kids are 18 months of age. So, I guess we have 2 months before I start putting the smack down on them. :violent1:

I have talked to a lot of other people here at work who tell me that there kids did not talk until 18 months. I hope once we hit that milestone that Allie just starts talking my ear off, so much that I can't stand it anymore!

The teacher that comes for EI twice a month says that when kids don't eat and use the muscles in their mouth to manipulate food like Allie, that they often have speech issues b/c those are the same muscles we use to talk. I hope this is strictly the case with us and that we will avoid the A word.

So far, Allie's fine motor delay is almost non-existent since we found out what we need to be doing with her and since therapy started 3 weeks ago. She is now doing shape sorters (well, some shapes, not all of them yet), which our OT tells us is "advanced." So, I guess at least Allie is ahead in an area! :party0049:

You ladies are the best. The way we found out about EI in the first place was not from any doctor, it was from all of you! I called them and made the referral myself. Had I not found this board, Allie probably would not be getting the help she needs and I really just love all of you to pieces for this. :hug:

Christyn

hi everyone I dont think its never too soon to start speech therapy becouse my son hunter is 7 months old and not speaking sounds like a normal 7 month old should and the dr said thats start soon then later.
kimmie
mother two and a wife for 7 years
alexis 2 years old refluxs free
hunter 7 months old refluxs every sinse 2 months old

I have noticed that you are worried about autism. Before you get terrified, google apraxia. It is also characterized by a loss of words. I am bugging our doc. for a diagnosis b/c I wonder if Corbin has it. Our speech therapist seems to think so. It doesn't carry the stigma of autism and is treatable with the right program (Kauffman Center). We have recently started a new program based on this idea and we are having a lot of luck. I hope everything turns out well for you.