Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Gifted and Speech Delayed?

Not me. I don't know what it's like to have a non-reading child, because DS was reading at least somewhat before he could talk (I still feel the curiosity about how much, but at the time I was squeamish about doing the deliberate tests it would have taken to find out, so I only have the bits we found out by accident!) and then he learned to speak and read better in parallel. There was a delightful phase in which he could speak in 4-5 word "newly minted" sentences, or in paragraphs from Thomas the Tank Engine!

Let me just add that although Dude's suggestion to forget sign language may seem logical, I think it would be beyond cruel. She already has plenty of incentive to speak; you described her trying to communicate with other children and failing because they don't sign.

Yep. My ds used one word "sentences" when he began to read. And even odder yet, his first words (beyond "mama" "no" and "dada") were all prepositions (on, off, up, down, in, out). We were ecstatic when ds finally said "ball". My dd, OTOH, talked in full sentences incredibly early - luckily we didn't have them in reverse. Easy to go from late talking to early than the reverse.

Mine too. DS10 had to learn the ABCs before he had any significant number of spoken words, and his talking came along in parallel with his reading. He did have lots of ear infections, but I would attribute this in retrospect to his ASD and the need to figure out a way to process and cope with language.

DeeDee

I think seeing the pediatrician is a good idea. From what you've written, it sounds like your dd is really doing very well, and while she may be behind in speech my guess is it's simply because she's been focusing on learning other things. Most of the young children I've known (gifted or not) tend to develop in spurts where they'll make leaps and bounds of progress in one area but maybe seem not quite on track in another, then all of a sudden the area that they didn't seem to be making forward motion on leaps ahead too... more so than steady linear across-the-board progress. That said, my ds12 didn't talk until he was 3, and made very few sounds ever, didn't babble. We didn't think anything was going on at the time simply because he was ahead of the game in other areas, and we didn't have him evaluated for speech when he was young. Fast forward to mid-elementary school and although he was a very verbal kid, he also had an expressive language disorder and he's been in speech therapy for several years now. I can't help but wonder if he would have been farther ahead earlier on if we'd taken him for EI when he was little.

It never hurts anything to take your child in for an evaluation - every eval any of my kids have had has been mostly fun for my kids If you find out nothing's up, that's good information! And if you discover that there is a challenge, the earlier you can start working on it the better you'll feel and most likely the better progress your dd can make and it will make things easier once she's older and in school.

Re the sensory things - having a professional help you sort those out will also be worthwhile - they can be due to soooo so many things, including personality and possibly just a phase. My older dd is a highly sensory kid - when she was young she screamed (we're talking Horror Flick level screaming :D) whenever she went anywhere new. It started at 2 and got so bad by the time she was 4 we couldn't take her *anywhere* she hadn't already been before and was comfortable. We took her to see a psychiatrist at 4 who recommended sensory OT and it helped quite a bit, but ironically it didn't help the real challenge, just gave her a way to cope with her sensory overload. We found out later, when she was in 2nd grade, that she was seeing double vision and that was what was really going on when she was so young and we took her to new places - she was freaked out because she couldn't see. She also had heightened auditory awareness because she relied on her hearing due to the sight challenges, which had an additional impact when she was somewhere new where there was noise or a lot of people etc - it was much noticeably loud to her than to us. So what I'm trying to say is - it may just be sensory with your dd, or it could be that what looks like a sensory challenge is a reaction due to some different type of challenge. Our dd is still relatively sensory even though she's much older now and her vision is corrected and she's not afraid of new places - she still has very sensitive hearing, responds to touch/odors etc, and she is still a "screamer" in perhaps a more grown-up type of manner - she can get quite dramatic over very little things, such as how to use a matrix of coins to explain multiplication (last night's math homework).

Sorry, getting off track here - but fwiw I think you're doing the right things - trust your instincts and you (and your dd) will be fine

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - I agree with the others who said not to drop the signing - that's her way of communicating and she's good at it and getting her message across. You can also tell that she's not behind in receptive language thanks to her signing and actions.

This isn't supported by research. Humans are social animals that want to communicate. Successful communication begets more successful communication. More likely is that either there is something preventing this child from developing the speech abilities, or it's developmental and she'll get there when she gets there.

Islandofapples, the bit I'm picking up on is the lack of consonant sounds. Start with the ped for feedback and screening, and then head on over to an audiologist for a complete workup. My DS' speech therapy for these phonological gaps was pretty quick and painless (at least in retrospect), and it ended up teaching him to read in the process.

We got the brush off from several directions when I was still asking about these things at 34 months. 36 months is the magic age when you get the attention of a ped. If you get the brush off, see if you can consult with a speech and hearing center or university language lab.

This is so true! And 36 months is a very big deal (at least it is where we're at) because that's the age at which a child is no longer eligible for EI but instead has to go through the school district for speech etc evals. In our area, it's easier to get into EI than into speech therapy etc through the school district... so another reason to seek help early.

FWIW, you don't have to have a ped's referral for EI or for a school district eval (at least we don't - I don't know if it's the same everywhere). And there are sometimes long waits - but there are also official timelines and deadlines for how quickly either EI or the school district must respond when a parent makes a request for an eval, so the best thing to do if you want to go through EI is to ask for an veal now and if in the meantime you meet with your ped and decide that everything's ok, you can cancel the EI appointment.

Outside of EI and the school district, we found we couldn't get into evals for speech/hearing/etc by private professionals or our children's hospital etc without a referral from a ped. When our ds was older we were able to, but when our kids were preschool age and younger we definitely had to have referrals just to get on waiting lists.

polarbear

I have absolutely no reason to believe our ped was trying to keep us from the EI system. Instead, we were repeatedly told "that's not something to worry about until he's 3." As in, they have developmental milestones that are somewhat discrete: Lack of consonants before 3 could still develop ok on their own; Lack on consonants after 3 needs an evaluation. Evidently, things might still develop if the child is 2 year and 364 days old.

As far as speech sounds, I believe before the age of two, children should have mastered vowel sounds and are only beginning to master b,m,w,n, and p. I remember my DD could not say the /h/ until right before she turned 3, and that was not considered delayed.

I found a link to a sound chart that may help.

the main reason why I've had BOTH boys go through EI was to get our foot in the door when it comes to dealing with the school district! In our area it's so much easier to go this route than through other evaluations! I was able to get my 4-year old a private Speech Evaluation on a fairly short notice last week but only because we already do OT at that same place so we didn't have to do the whole long waiting list. But in general, if there's any doubt and the child is under 3, go through EI to get things started! ... I have friends with two children (non-gifted) who are close to my boys ages (4 and just turned 3) and with the 4-year old they had to do evaluations through the school district since she wasn't in EI to get her into Special Ed for services but with the younger one I kept pushing my friend into doing the EI eval for their son just 3 months before he turned 3 and the whole process of him getting into the district special ed preschool was so much easier! ... they both need a lot of ST and some OT.

Oh, and I should add ... our pedi never suggested EI ... it was ME looking into our options when I was wondering why our 2 year old wasn't talking. So I contacted the EI myself and went from there.

We had 3 - Three (!?)- speech evals for ds between 2.5 - 4 (ish). We went through EI, then a local university clinic, and lastly a private therapist. Though incidental, our experiences were very similar at each setting as far as recommendations: his phonetic delays were developmentally 'normal ' (they should self-correct) and we were doing at home everything ds needed to improve. I really appreciated each eval. The first with EI was probably the most biased as they did speech and were required to do developmental. My stinking 2 year old was in rare form, reading the pages, doing somersaults, discussing math - be probably would have needed to be not talking at ALL to qualify. Just a warning.