Little guy w/ speech and physical delay
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Children with Special Needs: Little guy w/ speech and physical delay
hi, new to momsview boards.
I have an almost 4 year old with a fairly significate speech delay and some physical delay in his development. He has made alot of improvement since his DX when he was 2 but i worry how the little guy will do when school starts. I am still trying to get him potty trained ugh. I dont know if he isnt getting it because of the delay or that he is just stubborn (it could go either way) He receives service through our school district.
I guess my main concern is that I am afraid that there might have been a neurilogical event that caused this, not just something that just sometimes happens. I had a real hard pregnancy with him, he is my fourth and I just knew that things just wasnt going right. At his birth they were very concerned and were prepping for an emergency c cection, when I knew that things were not going well I delivered him in a matter of minutes. He had no amniotic fluid to speak of but perked right up after birth. He crawled at 5 mo and walked at 10 mo. But he didnt talk, so we put him in services and now he is showing about 8 months behind in his physical goals, about 1 1/2 yrs in his speech. I am afraid for the little guy, I am worried that he may have had a stroke. I have an appt w/ his dr. and am going to bring this up again. Opinions on how important it is to find out if he had a stroke at some point? If he had a stroke would it make him more suseptible to another in the future? I know that all mommas think their babies are smart, but he really is a bright little cookie.
Also my mom had a stroke when she was 54. Her stroke worries and encourages me w/ my son. She should have died, she should have been a vegetable, she is partially blind and has some speech problems, but she lives on her own w/ my brothers help, she quilts and has a fairly normal life. I know that if my mom can do it my son can too. Any comments would be appreciated 
Hi, Kristin. Welcome to Momsview. I have a 5yo son with High-Functioning Autism. We had a lot of trouble with the potty training too. Ugh!
What kind of speech services is he receiving? My son is about 6 months behind in his speech and the other children in his Kindergarten class are forever patient with him and the trouble with articulation that he has.
I really don't have any idea what could be causing the delays in your son's speech and motor skills. I would definitely speak to your son's dr about it. I believe that signs of a stroke would show up if you are able to see a neurologist. I think there are other moms here that can help you out more. Keep your chin up! These kids are the most resilient amazing things ever!
Zach goes to school twice a week for a half day. He sees a speech therapist one of the days he is there. They have been working w/ him on getting him to control his crying and screaming. Because he isnt able to comunicate like his peers he resorts to screaming when we isnt understood. I have had a bit of a problem w/ his teachers because they are treating him more like a behavior problem than a speech problem. His behavior is a direct cause of his inablity to communicate. He gets really mad if we dont understand him, but if we understand him and then say he cant do or have whatever he is fine. The anger isnt that he didnt get what he wanted, it was that we didnt understand him.
When Zach first went to school I went with him because of his age, now that he is older he goes by himself and honestly I feel left out of the loop alot. He really cant tell me what went on at school except for a few words and I try to talk w/ his teachers at least every week or two but I still dont know REALLY how he is doing at school. I am thinking about moving him to head start, I think that they like more parent involvement. If only the little guy would get potty trained I would feel more confortable investigating that option.
Hi there, welcome to the boards. My understanding from your post is the school did an eval and labeled him delayed in speech and motor skills right? If so then you need to see your doc and say, okay well my son has some delays and is receiving services, how do we get a medical diagnosis? The schools only test what they can and cannot do, they don't look for causes. Speech is a bit different, I believe, if it is a physical problem, PamT will know that better. Anyway, your ped should get you a refer to either a pedi neurologist or a developmental ped. Besides for peace of mind there are many reasons you want a diagnosis. There are plenty of diseases out there that are degenerative, there are specific treatments that help specific diseases. Good luck on this, keep us posted on what your doc says!
As far as the connection w/ him physically and his speech when he was first at school he wasnt low muscle tone but they wanted him to be better than he was, we do mouth exercises and that made a difference in the muscle tone but the delay continues. He also has problems w/ balance, he W sits for more stability and if you bump him he flays his hands out to try and catch himself much more than I think is normal. He cant balance on one foot for more than a second or two. He is also flat footed and walks on the inside of his feet. At his last Dr visit about 6 mo ago she seemed to think that this was more normal than not since our family is clutzy and advised making sure he keeps active. I felt at that time that if you look at any kid they will have areas that are behind and areas that they are ahead, so I really didnt push the whole thing. But still my doubts continue which is why he is going into the dr again.
Have you been using any type of language program with him, ie pictures or signs, to lessen his frustration? One of my kids is non verbal and almost 10. She has about 160 signs, so can make most of her needs known. I've just started using the boardmaker program, and she's working well with pictures.
I would think that if he had a stroke in utero, you would have seen more of a motor delay in infancy. You mentioned that he crawled and walked at the early side of normal. If a stroke caused over all low tone, it would have been evident then. That's not to say it couldn't have affected just the speech area.
If he really pronates (walks on the inside of his foot),that could cause him to be an unsteady walker. It wouldn't cause the poor balance in sitting, though. You could try some fun things to help him to gain confidence in this are, like pushing him forward, sideways and backwards onto his bed, and having him catch himself. Get him to do some trampoline stuff. It's fun, and great for balance and tone. Yes, keep him active.
One of my kids has low tone, and we were told she might never walk. She now plays soccer, swims, etc. All of the activity is great for her, and she's surpassed everyone's expectations.
If you're really worried, get a consult from a physiotherapist. You'll get a good assessment, and lots of great ideas!
Don't let your doctor talk you into thinking everything's great if you know it's not. Trust yourself!!
Has anyone offered a PECS system? My son only had a vocab of 25 words, almost all labels, when he was dxed at 3 and after 6 months of therapy, his vocab jumped to 300 words and his tantrums and frustration immediately diminished. The Picture Exchange Communication System can be so helpful and it sounds like your little guy would be perfect for it. Pam will probably have more suggestions for you. She is a Godsend!
What have you tried so far with potty training? My ds wasn't trained until he was almost 4 and it drove me nuts! His therapists helped me out and it made a huge difference. We had to try several different strategies before we hit on one that worked.
With ds's therapy, which is done in a school setting for 1/2 a day after Kindergarten, there is a communication log sent back and forth. They tell me how his behavior was for them, what he ate, if he worked on any projects, what they worked on during his articulation time. I let them know how he behaved at home, what he ate, how he slept and how he did with his homework. Yours wouldn't have to be so detailed but just a quick memo as to his behavior and anything that they did that day would be nice. It might be something that they would be willing to do each day.
I agree that you need to speak with your ped. again. My ped put off my concerns for 6 months and his ds was delayed for 9 months because of her lack of concern. She has been wonderful since but I would let her know that you want a more in-depth evaluation done. If you press, she will do one. Just stick to your guns!
Thank you all for all your advise and support.
We did do sign and pictures for a while but he seemed to outgrow it. Zach probably has about 150 words now. Sign helped alot to get his little brain to think in language terms. He still "babbles" with his fingers if he cant get a word out and it seems to help him. I think that by using some motor skills he was able to switch on his language. The pictures worked well in the classroom, not so much at home. They were little squares w/ pictures on them that velcroed to a board on the fridge. Honestly they ended up in the couch alot . But at school he was able to tell them what he wanted when he wasnt articualating clear enough for them.
Potty training was going pretty well UNTIL TODAY ARGG..... I could smell that he had had a BM but I checked his pants and he was fine. He told me to "close eyes". I thought we were playing a game but then I had one of those feelings. I looked over the couch and he had pooped on the floor, rubbed it into the couch, really made a mess of things. He doesnt like anyone to know when he has a BM and I think he was actually trying to hide it by burying it. I advise anyone w/ kids and/or dogs when you buy the crib or the crate, buy the carpet cleaner cause you sure are going to need it. As long as we are home alone he does ok w/ his training, but if his brothers are home or we leave to go anywhere we have problems. I am hoping that as he gets better at this he will be more able to concentrate on the task at hand. Foreign potties at stores are a nightmare, he either isnt comfortable or there are way too many distractions.
Great idea about the behavior log. He has a evaluation appt again with the school in a week, I will talk w/ them about it and see if they will do it. Even if I just put a notebook in his backpack that they could jot a few notes in.
Hi Kristin. I'm a speech therapist so I might be able to throw a few ideas out there. Keep in mind I haven't seen your child and don't know the whole story, so these are just thoughts/suggestions and please don't take them as more than that. With that said...I am curious as to why you think he had a stroke. Is it just because of the family history or perhaps the traumatic delivery? Did anyone involved in Zach's medical care suggest a stroke to you? While infants can have strokes in utero and during delivery it is not very common at all. I think I've worked with 2 stroke babies in my 14 years of speech therapy. If he did have a stroke, then it likely is not related to family hx since most strokes in infants are due to trauma or a physical malformation, not genetics or issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, coronary artery disease, etc. like adults. Has he ever had an MRI or CT-scan? That would be the way to definitively diagnose stroke. Is he weaker on one side that the other? That is usually the case for a stroke as well. You might want to get a referral to a pediatric neurologist to further investigate the possibility.
The aggravating thing for us as therapists and you as a mom is that probably 80% of the time we simply don't know what causes a lot of developmental delays and disorders. Sometimes if we see a cluster of symptoms like maybe the child's eyes are a little too far apart or he has unusually long fingers or really small ears, in addition to other speech and physical problems, we will refer them to a geneticist. However, even genetics fails us a lot of times and we have kids on our caseloads with big problems and we don't know why. That's not all bad though. Regardless of the diagnosis I treat the symptoms anyway. The only thing a diagnosis does is give some idea of the ultimate prognosis. In the case of a stroke in infancy we generally expect full recovery of all skills...just in a slower time frame.
You say Zach has about 150 words. Is he putting words together in sentences or phrases? Does he use words, gestures, grunting, or a combination as his primary means to communicate? Is his speech understandable? If not, could you post some examples of how he says things?
I also think a behavior log is a great idea. Furthermore, I would make some surprise drop-in visits. There are many wonderful special ed teachers out there, but there are also some not so good ones who take advantage of a roomful of children who can't tell what when on at school. I have a mother of a verbal autistic child suing a school for such issues right now. I don't want to alarm you, but I would drop in unannounced and make sure he is getting the services and stimulation that he needs. Finally, if he is just getting speech once a week I doubt that is enough. Is it group or individual? If group, then you really must insist on individual and I'd aim for twice a week.
Good luck!
P.S. Thanks for your kind words Tink. I've had a CRUDDY week at work and that helps a little
I thought stroke partially because of the family history, partly because he acts like my mom sometimes when he is having a hard time with words. It is just like her sometimes. As an example, he will point at something and I will say do you want the ball? and he will say "no ball. BALL" like he doesnt recognize that the word you are saying is the same word he is saying. My mom had a hemoragic stroke, not a plaque type stroke, she lost almost 1/4 of her brain, we think it had to do w/ a spike in her BP, she was very high when they brought her in 280/200, but her BP is normal now w/out meds. So who knows, we dont know really whether the stroke was the cause of the high BP or the other way around. It seems with both Zach and mom that they have to take the long way around to get at a word. Maybe it is just that they cope the same way cause they are alot alike in alot of ways.
He has just recently started putting more than 2 words together, he has some really weird ways of saying things and if you dont know him you would have no idea what he is saying. a "anicher" is a sandwich "towder" is a towel "tonk" is our cat tom, "haball" is football, other things he says quite well "Daniel jerk" is one we are trying to break him of (even though yeah his big brother can be a jerk )
As far as genetic abnormality, I dont think so. He is very well formed, 95% for his age for weight and height, almost model pretty I think He does have a nevi sp? almost 2 inches across on his back but he has no other symptomology of that disease that you get super tall and have a bad heart. (I cant remember what it's called) Part of the reason we need him potty trained is that diapers just dont fit him anymore.
I think mostly I worry alot about him, and not having any definitive reason for his delay is aggrevating. On my bad days I fret about finding the little guy in real trouble and the guilt I would feel that I failed him. He is such a great person and I love him dearly and like all mommies want the best for him. I am thinking that maybe I would rest alot easier if they did do an MRI so I would know and then proceed from there. I will talk w/ his ped, she has been our kids dr for the last 10 yrs and we have a good working relationship.
Once again guys, thanks a ton, it helps alot getting this off my chest and getting a different view on my little guy.
My cousins child had a stroke in the womb. I don't know if every stroke is the same. His left arm is very thin and weak due to stroke. You could not miss it. Since you are very worried, I would go to a neurologist.
Seems almost all the children in ds old special ed school where at the 100% growth rate. There were a few children who were very small. Hardly any middle ground there. (90 percent boys of course.)
Does he go to special ed preschool? Once a week isn't even speech therapy. My son gets 45 minites times 3 times a week. He is at the 40% for his exact age. If you get to 85% you don't need speech anymore. (He used to be at like 5% for his exact age) Speech is like very hard for my son. He talks slower than other kids and I think his tone is off alittle bit. But he is going to be 5 in February and he can talk in full sentences. I think he finally got he and she - her and him right about 70 percent of the time. For example on how hard speech is for him, the speech and seit teacher spent three months teaching him the answer to "How are you?" He used to say 4 year old. (How are you? and How old? are you really are not concrete questions.)
We spent 6 months on she he her him. Ahhhhh!!
Of course I think he is extremely smart. We read 6 year old science books like the magic school bus or ask and find out for a hour at a time. But due to his speech problem his regular ed teachers have no idea how really smart he is because he answers questions wrong due to his speech problem(He doesn't understand all the words so he guesses what people are asking him). or answers a different question - maybe something that is interesting at the moment. Ahhhh!!
Potty train... I wouldn't worry about a few accidents. Is he in underwear? Accidents are normal for 4 year old.
They do ot for behavior. My son shouldn't even qualify for ot because he is advanced for all ot skils but -
DS has troube sitting through circle time (but not story time) Circle time is too many word and no pictures - so he is fidgeting and touching the other kids. So the ot person gave him a weighted vest. Now he can sit through long boring circle time with little problem. If he didn't have the vest he might not be able to go to regular preschool. He would be too disruptive at circle time. He only wears it once or twice a day for 20 minutes.
Other people I know do the brushing for kids who are overstimulated by the environment.
Zach does have a team meeting in a week, I will be discussing where we go from here. I have to smile about the he she pronoun battle. I am the only girl in my house besides the cats and I am just "mom". All my boys had a hard time with she, there were just not any shes to model We are working on I and me, about 50% of the time when he talks about himself he uses Zachie.
Zach has had his problems w/ library and circle time, they found that if they were singing a song if he got to hold something like a book or a toy that was like the song he was able to attend much better. It seemed to anchor him to the floor There is also bribery, a promise of a treat will help him attend. He does fine w/ our family at church, the kids do not leave during our service so he has to be quiet and mostly still for about an hour. He is one of the better kids at our church especially for his age.
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