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

lol ... when DS4 had his EI eval at 25 months (when he still only had 10 words and nothing else ... not even numbers and such like the younger one would later on) ... he still almost didn't qualify because he was masking all his problems so well!

While toddlers will get flagged for not having five words at 18 months or 50 at 24 months to make sure something isn't wrong, it is still within the range of normal for a child not to say his first word until he turns two. I believe the average at 24 months old is somewhere between 150 and 300 words. And, approximations still count a this age.

I'm not saying your DD is not language delayed. I don't know. But, I think it is easy to expect more from your child than what is fair especially when they are showing uneven development.

Also, 18 months was the peak of our DD's stranger anxiety, and that did not get better until right around 2.5. What you are describing sounds pretty normal to me. Our DD would try to claw her way inside me around her grandparents at that age. She was fine out in public until anyone got in her face.

The obsession with letters does not seem unusual for this age to me, either. As long as it is not interfering with her daily life I think it is okay. It does seem to be an age for obsessions, whether trains, dinosaurs, construction vehicles, letters, or backyardiagans. The fact that she is into pretend play bodes well.

She sounds a lot like my DD - very advanced in some areas but delayed in speech. She babbled and cooed as an infant, started saying "ma ma" and "da da" fairly early on, and then... stopped. (Both my kids did this, actually). Not another word until she was 24 months. Instead she'd stare into your eyes and point to whatever she wanted (we never taught her how to sign).

She had a proper hearing test done and passed it. She was sent to a speech pathologist who taught us the "Hanen, It Takes Two to Talk" instructional method, and voila: success.

http://www.hanen.org/hanen-programs/programs-for-parents/it-takes-two-to-talk-parent-program.aspx

I believe it worked for DD(now 9) because I really think her speech delay was due to perfectionism. As soon as I silenced my constant stream of verbalizing and adopted the Hanen "child-led" approach which involves speaking one word at a time about whatever the child is focusing on, DD started speaking. She quickly made up for lost time and went from nothing to complete sentences in several weeks

Just my story: my son was labeled speech delayed when he was 2. He only had 20 words. He was started in speech therapy. He STILL didn't talk and 8 months later was diagnosed with autism. He started ABA and immediately (as in during the ABA evaluation!) started talking. Speech therapy alone did nothing because we had the wrong diagnosis and it was the wrong therapy for him at that time.

I'm telling this story so you don't wait 6 months to reevaluate like we did. If what you are doing is not working, look for something else. I wish we had gotten the appropriate diagnosis and started the appropriate therapy right away.

End result: my son is now 9 and has been a DYS since age 7. And he never stops talking...

Sign language is successful communication.

But I think geofizz's point is regarding your original claim, that "Talking is hard. Why talk when there's signing? The primary motivation for kids to work on their linguistics is the need to be understood. She doesn't have that need, and so, she's not working on it. It's not a priority."

Kids who are developing normally don't need to "work on" acquiring language. It's what their brains are built to do. Expose them to multiple languages, they'll learn them all. Hearing kids who grow up in deaf signing households learn the spoken language of the surrounding community with no problem.

I agree with others that this is a speech delay, and while it could work itself out (as some here have experienced), it warrants a look from a professional.

Yes, and then geofizz supported that point while ostensibly refuting it, via discussion of "successful communication."

Keep in mind, we're not talking about baby signs here. This child has a signing vocabulary of 350 words, and is making up more all the time.


Yes, and the child we're talking about here has clearly learned both languages. That's independent of speech.


Citation? I think it would be hard to find rigorous studies on families where all adult members of the household are deaf, because how many are there?

Here's some anecdotal information: http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_a1eea10f-f66f-5a57-a4a3-e6cb7fbf86a9.html

And it backs up my point:

I think this is an important point. I wonder, though, if this will change as she gets older and is exposed to more people who don't understand sign language. It would be interesting to know how many of the people she is with everyday are fluent in sign, rendering verbal speech unnecessary.

This is such an interesting topic... the need to communicate Vs. having learned vocabulary. Neither of my (non-verbal until 24 months) kids knew any sign, but I can't even guess as to what DD's vocab was. I could ask for anything and she'd point to it. I lost track of how many words she knew. It didn't seem to bother her, though, that she couldn't speak or sign. Maybe that's because I hovered and anticipated her needs so she didn't have to verbalize them?

Then there's my DS... when he started talking it was within a day or two of his 2nd birthday. He went from being completely non-verbal to handing me alphabet blocks and naming them all (he knew all 26). He just... decided to start talking, out of nowhere. Boom, just like that. I'm going to start talking by telling mommy what these letters are called.

How is that a need to be understood? Or is that a form of hyperlexia? (i.e. is that a typical child, a spectrum child, a gifted child, or simply a quirky one?) He was looking at me, making excellent eye contact, and talking to me. But he wasn't saying "mama, up" or "juice please" or whatever. Instead it was "cee! dee! efff! emmm!" etc etc as he correctly handed me the corresponding block for each. Within weeks, just like DD after her late start, DS was also speaking in sentences. It's as if once they started, the flood gates just opened.

Islandofapples - when your DD signs, is she engaging with you or is she just labeling objects? Is she engaged and connected or is she encyclopedic and methodical?

They're so interestingly unique that it can be hard to identify warning signs. There's no harm in pursuing professional help though - that way your bases are covered.

Not sure what you mean...
She wants everything done her way and insists that I get what she's signing (and sometimes saying with one syllable) and won't back down about it until I acknowledge what she's trying to tell me. Usually it is about what she's observing. She wants to tell me when she sees numbers, letters, writing, shapes, animals, etc. She also points and I'll tell her what stuff is or explain more about it, but mostly she tells me what she thinks she's seeing and I confirm. This started way back at 11.5 months when she started "Reading" her picture books and signing what she saw and would "ask" for confirmation about real life objects. Like a semi-truck pulled up next to us in our car and she asked me if it was an airplane. So I had to go figure out the sign for truck after that.

She just carried a stool over to her play table and is signing "please" and pointing to me and then the chair to get me to move to her table lol.

Dude, I'm not sure what the rest of your point is, but I can address this:

Reliable numbers of deaf signers in the U.S. are hard to come by, but estimates are around .5 million. Most of them marry other fluent signers. And ninety percent of their children have normal hearing. So how many CODAs (children of deaf adults) are there? Probably millions.

Some do need a bit of speech therapy, if they don't have much interaction with the hearing community in their early years, but they catch up quickly when they hit school age. But most pick up speech very early from hearing relatives, friends, babysitters, neighbors, etc., in the same way that immigrant children pick up English even if their parents don't speak it.

Sorry I don't have a citation, but citing this is a bit like providing a citation that Muslim-Americans exist. (Actually a very apt comparison, since there's a similar lack of hard data, but nobody doubts that a substantial population exists.) A bit of googling will back up my claims.

Here's a good intro to just how normal (and fluently bilingual) CODAs are: CODA Brothers