Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 3yo having issues with explanations

My 3yo dd is having trouble explaining events that happen throughout her day as well as getting her ideas across. She even has a hard time telling me what she hears when a story is read aloud to her. When she does try to explain herself, she will start talking then start the same sentence over again. She will do this sometimes 10-15 times in a row until she either gets the whole sentence out or she will just give up and say "I don't know".

When we had her tested, her non-verbal scores were extremely high but there is was a significant gap between that and the listening comprehension scores. Would that have something to do with the her issue of not being able to explain herself. It almost seems like her brain is thinking faster than she can talk.

Is this typical with gifted children? Any suggestions on how I can help her with this. Thanks in advance!

Yes, stammering! I completely forgot it had a name. I'm still concerned though that she is not able to explain her day or retell stories. I'm guessing that concern has nothing to do with stammering, or does it?

I'm not assuming that her mind is working faster than her mouth, and it doesn't sound like that to me. Something like that might cause stammering, but not (in my layperson's opinion) repeating something over and over without being able to find words to express a feeling or thought.

The listening comprehension score might be accurate. Does she have any history of hearing problems? Infections necessitating tubes, etc.?

She has had her hearing checked and all is fine. She has been evaluated for ASD since my son has it but she didn't fit the profiles so that's not the problem either. Are there any learning disabilities that would cause a child to have problems with listening comprehension and issues explaining their thoughts?

I'm way out of my depth now. I thought she might be like my older son, who had hearing problems early on and both depressed listening comprehension and listening attention span scores.

It might be that she has some sort of expressive language problem that has nothing to do with her internal thought process. I just have a funny layperson's feeling that it's not specifically that her mouth is running too slow-- that might cause problems but I just don't see how it could cause an inability to get anything out.

I guess at this point you've got a couple of main options: wait and see, and consult further specialists. I might wait and see for a little while, and gently encourage her to take her time, and chip away at the problem any way you can. Kids develop at different speeds, and asynchronous kids more so.

Have you searched this website for answers?

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/

For a while, when our son was about her age, we thought he may have Auditory Processing Disorder. We took him to an OT and she evaluated him and said his language was on-par with children five years old and any stuttering was normal.

Not saying that is what your DD has, but just sharing.

My mom recalled I stammered a lot when I was around 3. She kept reminding me to think before I talked.

I don�t stammer anymore, but expressive language is definitely my weaker area. So I agree with what Iucounu wrote above.

Thank you for the website. APD has actually crossed my mind. My son that has autism also has Expressive Receptive Language Disorder so maybe this is just something running in our genes. I'll ask his speech therapist what her thoughts are on my dd and see if we should bring her in for an eval. Thanks again for the website!

My DS does this a lot, most often when he is trying to do several things at once (eg talk while he's watching TV) I remind him to think before he talks too. Sometimes it helps!

Not sure if this is relevant or not. My little one not quite three also repeats parts of sentences over a few times before she is able to get the whole sentence out. I think there are two factors affecting her. I do think that her mind is far ahead of her sentence as there are times when she skips the mid part and just goes to the end. Since I am with her most of her day I am able to decipher what she is referring to. The other factor is that she has hypotonia and there is some huge amount of muscles in and around your mouth used for talking (something like 131). For her to coordinate it all takes extra time and effort and I think she buys that time by repeating herself and that also keeps her place in the talking.

I have been very careful not to call attention to the problem. When she finally gets out the sentence I repeat it back to her in a fluid manner and sometimes she will repeat it back to me in that same fluid manner. I think it helps her if I can stay really calm and just let her get it out at her own time and pace. (Patience is not easy for me!)