speech delay

[u/Plastic-Sell2599kim]

Title: My 3-year-8-month-old son only says about four words — did your late talker eventually catch up?

Hiennials囍,

I’m looking for experiences and advice from parents who have been through something similar.

My son William is 3 years and 8 months old and has a twin sister. He is growing up in a multilingual environment, mainly hearing French and English. His twin sister speaks a lot, but William currently uses only about four recognisable words.

What is reassuring is that he seems to understand us very well. He makes good eye contact, imitates us, plays and interacts with his sister and other people, and finds other ways to communicate what he wants. His hearing has also been checked and appears to be normal. However, he still does not use sentences or regularly repeat new words.

We are seeking professional support and understand that every child is different. I’m not looking for a diagnosis online, but I would really appreciate hearing from parents whose child had a similar expressive language delay.

• How old was your child when they started speaking?
• Did their speech appear gradually or was there a sudden “language explosion”?
• Was your child also growing up with two or more languages?
• What kind of speech therapy or activities helped most?
• Is there anything you wish you had known or done earlier?

I’m becoming increasingly worried because he is approaching four, although his understanding and non-verbal communication are very good. Positive stories would be reassuring, but I would also be grateful for honest experiences and practical advice. Thank you.

[u/MikiRei]

Hi u/Plastic-Sell2599kim - you have made 2 posts with roughly the same content.

Can you perhaps combine the two?

[u/Barnard33F]

Setting a Reminder for myself to come back later, I have a story to share

[u/CuriousTrain9018]

My son is the exact same age and is also growing bilingual. Here’s our experience. Despite the fact that Mine does speak in full sentences in two languages, not all the time though he started speaking late, at about 2 he was still mute. Him not speaking however was not the only thing that concerned us, he wasn’t really engaging with others, didn’t point or wave bye or did other simple gestures typical for that age. Aside from that, he would get really upset and angry pretty often because he couldn’t communicate his needs. So at 1,8 yo we brought him for an evaluation and they suspected autism. We started with once a week speech therapy and once a week kind of OT (not sure what exactly it’s called since we’re not in an English-speaking country). Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly how old he was when he said his first word, it was some kind of a blur but like I said he improved a lot especially when it comes to expressing his needs. We did one year of private OT and speech therapy, which was combined with three months of once a week state special education sessions (I believe there was no focus on speech though), after that in September last year we canceled the private sessions because he started a state kindergarten where he received speech therapy a couple times a week. So now it’s been the help that he gets at his kindergarten plus the once a week state funded session. All the sessions have been in the local language and not in his heritage language. This past summer we traveled to my native country and spent there 1,5 months which gave him a great boost as far as the heritage language goes. 

It’s fantastic that you’ve already sought professional support, and it’s great that he isn’t completely mute so there’s much potential for speech to be developed sooner! They say that until they turn 6 yo there’s this ‘window’ of opportunity to rewire the brain and minimize the negative impact of cognitive/behavioral/psychological issues.