Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Gifted with speech problems? Long!

Background: husband 2E (Aspergers), me gifted, my 6.5yo is 2E (exceptionally gifted + Aspergers). Gifted and Aspergers in both families.

My daughter is 3y4m and also has Aspergers (yes it's possible to diagnose girls with Aspergers very young in case you're thinking this is not possible!)

From infancy her receptive language skills were fantastic. However she turned 2 and was still not putting two words together. She had an extensive vocab of single words (you'd name an object once and she remembered it forever). She'd only put two words together when one of the words was "please", which didn't really count as two words.

At 2y2m we saw a speech therapist who assessed my daughter as having expressive speech delay. After 4 sessions over 4 months, my daughter could say things like very long sentences. However I don't know how much was due to speech therapy (as I wasn't really impressed with the therapist's suggestions) and I feel my daughter kind of did it on her own, with more intense help from me.

So after four months the speechie told me "the original assessment of expressive speech delay no longer applies because she is now in the average range for her age". So that was cool.

My daughter has always talked non stop but it always sounded like babble. She's much clearer now but we are still working hard on her articulation. I understand her most of the time, but others have difficulty.

Our new speechie doesn't know what's going on, because my daughter sometimes checks boxes for verbal dyspraxia but then does other things which contradict that, or show her sequencing is fine. The issues with my daughter's speech are:

- she puts a "t" on the end of most sentences (or a single word if she's saying one word), for eg "I want to brush my HAIRt" but she can say "mummy can I brush your HAIR please". The speechie said that when kids finish words/sentences with a sound, it's usually an easy sound like "m" ("I want to brush my HAIRm") and not a 'hard' sound like T.

- not adding on a second/subsequent syllable. For eg "poh" for potty (or "poht" if at the end of a sentence). But for newer words she's learning, she'll say it closer to the proper way (my dad commented "for the words she has known for ages, she won't pronounce them properly but when we teach her new words, she gets them correct").

- we're working on various sounds in certain places, like "bus" (daughter says "buh"). Progress is slow but getting there. For eg we have to work really, really hard to get her to say "horSe" because she always says "hoh" or "hort".


I feel terrible for her because she is a bright little thing who has so much to say but she's being stymied by her speech problems. The other day she saw my mother and exclaimed "Grandma! I thought you went to exercise!" and she has never said "I thought" before. She says new things like that in the correct context, correct tense etc and I think how much more are you capabale of saying, but not able to express?

I don't know how to help her because I (and the speech therapists) are confused! Yes we're working on articulation but my daughter is also refusing to do the work, she withdraws and I know she's perfectly aware she's doing something 'wrong' and we're correcting her (my son is similar). So we also have to tread carefully and not cause her to shut down and resist the speech therapy stuff.

I am teaching her to read in the hopes it will help her speech. I daresay she's visual like my son, so I'm launching straight in to sight words instead of taking a phonics approach. I taught my son his letters (pronounciation of them) when he was 14 months, he then taught himself to read by age 2 through me using sight words with him.

With my daughter, she also knew her letters before turning two, but then so much got in the way of life and I didn't get the chance to really sit down with her and pursue reading like I wanted to. Yesterday I introduced her to 6 simple words, today she was able to give me the correct cards when I asked for them.


Sorry this is long... I guess I'm desperate to see if anyone else has experienced this. I have looked in to speech disorders and my daughter might tick a few boxes here and there, but those she doesn't tick are pretty significant.

Also I'm concerned because our 2E teacher says that in all her experience (extensive), the kids with early speech problems like this were far more likely to have learning difficulties with reading/writing and they were more likely to have dyslexia. So I want to help my daughter now, obviously!

Thanks for your consideration!

I have a son with profound dyslexia that had (has) similar speech problems at your dd's age. You are wise to keep an eye - and I agree that these kind of issues can be a red flag for dyslexia.

I found the book, "Childhood Speech, Language & Listening Problems" by Patricia McAleer Hamaguchi helpful in understanding many of the issues.

I would also suggest you keep an eye on CAPD issues (central auditory processing). These cannot be tested until about age 8, but I wonder about her word endings, syntax etc. Although her receptive language is strong (as is my son), she still could have a processing issue in some aspect of language that is tripping her up.You may find this website helpful http://www.ocslha.com/Ferre.htm.

Do you think that the 2E teacher has much experience with kids as far into the gifted zone as your family members tend to be? If not, I'd take this idea with a grain of salt.

I think you are doing a wonderful job, and wish I had more specific guidance for you.

1) Are your son's score's high enough to apply to DYS - once you are in, you can ask those same questions about your daughter to the parent elists.

2) It sounds to me like your daughter loves to learn. I'm guessing that you are already encouraging her in her favorite learning topics as well, but felt that your post was long enough already. If not, just add to your to do list to look at what truely motivates your DD. Lots of Gifted kids are motivated by things that are atypical for their age, and unmotivated by things that are typical for their age.

((Possible example - we'll put a penny in the charity box for each time you say one of these 10 words the conventional way, then we can bring it to the sick children to buy them stuffed animals.))

3) Is it possible to check a child your daughter's age for CAPD? I'm guessing you've already had her hearing checked? I'm wondering if her hearing was muffled at the time she learned those words (perhaps she learned them in the uterus?)

So glad you posted! Keep us in your heart and let us know, ok?
love and more love,
Grinity

thank you Mich The speechies and I were talking about CAPD but they both didn't think my daughter ticked the boxes. But it's still something I'm keeping in mind.

We homeschool so I can do things with my daughter as much as possible. I will be using a programme called 'All About Spelling' as part of her literacy, as I have some friends with kids that have severe dyslexia and this has been the only programme that has worked.

As my daughter has an ASD (Aspergers) diagnosis, this means she may be more unlikely to get a CAPD diagnosis in the future even if there is a problem, because it seems like all the medical professionals consider it all part of ASD My daughter's paediatrician is an ASD specialist, I really like this woman and she has been brilliant with us, but she's in the camp of people who don't really believe there is such a thing as APD/CAPD

Our 2E teacher friend did confess to me she suspects we will have dyslexia issues with my daughter.

However I sometimes feel that my daughter (who is quite stubborn and very "my way or the highway!") is stuck in the routine/habit of saying words a certain way and sees no reason to change them. I told her that if she doesn't say "horSe", her friends won't understand that she is talking about a horse. So she does try at times.

Sometimes she has really surprised the speech therapist with pronouncing something. For eg she never says "happy", she just says "ha". The speechie pointed to a happy picture and said the word, and my daughter repeated it without a problem. The incentive is my daughter gets to put a sticker on the picture, so she really does try to say the words.

Because she often gets the words right in the session, the speechie is wondering if it is more about a habit, rather than a genuine disability/problem. She hasn't encountered this before and admits she's baffled (which is fine with me, at least she's honest and we work together!).

I thought the success was because we are using cued articulation (so even if there's an auditory problem, my daughter sees the visual cue)... but we have been in the dark at bed time when I've had my daughter repeat words correctly.

Grinity, thank you too! Yes the 2E teacher has experience with gifted kids across the board, she's probably the only person we've worked closely with who truly gets it, and the issues we have as an gifted-Aspie family She also teaches dyslexic kids, and kids with other LDs and again has firsthand knowledge because of her own family, which is why she is passionate about it all.

We are in Australia, so I'm not sure what DYS is

My daughter does like to learn, yes. I feel terribly guilty that I haven't done anything with her, compared to what I did with my son when he was her age. He was reading well by now, but things happened where I didn't have the uninterrupted time to teach my daughter the same things. I definitely feel I haven't nurtured her enough here and I'm homeschooling because I can nurture them the best! Sigh.

My daughter passes hearing tests (just general ones), she can hear me sneaking out the door from the other end of the house and comes running I think she got her ears checked during her checkups and all was fine.


We also have speech issues in our family. My dad has a stutter which was worse when he was a child. My husband and son both have 'accents' common with Asperger's and also slight stutters/stumbling over words. Husband has clarity issues too, he talks really fast and often skips syllables. For eg if he says partition it comes out as "pshishon".

I also have a first cousin who couldn't really speak when he was young and now stutters a bit as an adult. So quite a few speech issues in the family.

My daughter did have a tongue tie as an infant which hampered nursing, so we had the procedure to snip it. She fed well after that. A dentist said her jaw and teeth are fine and the OT can't see anything in the mouth/jaw that would contribute to the speech problems.

Hi daggobz! I have an ASD son (also diagnosed at age 2 with speech delay, 2 1/2 with autism, and most recently as profoundly gifted.) He is 8 now and did the half a word speech thing, too. He still shortens words whenever he can. "Gotta go pod!" (for I have to go to the potty) and he shortens names, too...but he makes them sound like nicknames (Crow for Crowley, Cookie for Cookerly, Maggie for Maggenheim). He has absolutely no problem reading (no dyslexia) but he shortens things up a lot when he speaks. It's like he really can't be bothered with saying the entire word sometimes. He is like someone texting when he talks. Why add in all the unnecessary parts?

When he was younger, he would sometimes reverse syllables. His speechie had never seen it, but his ABA therapist was very familiar with it as an ASD characteristic. So, that is what I have always considered it. And it has NOT affected his literacy in any way. I was surprised to read about your daughter, because it sounds so much like my son!

Have you gotten an audiology exam for your daughter to really check her hearing?
I asked for an audiology exam for my son in kindy. He had become "inattentive," but no language issues. He had [passed all the hearing tests at the [pediatrician's.
Much to our surprise we learned that he is almost deaf in one ear. We got a very good hearing aid and he has an FM system this year; inattention is gone. At the yearly [pediatrician's visit, they again said his hearing at their screen is "normal," which it isn't.
Anyway... I don't think the pediatrician's hearing screen is done correctly in many cases. For any speech problems, I would get an audiology exam, just to make sure. HTH.

It's important to remember that being gifted and having dyslexia are not mutually exclusive. I have a number of clients that are gifted (from an IQ perspective) and also have speech and language issues and dyslexia. Unfortunately, intellectual horsepower cannot compensate for a weak phonological and orthographic profile. Horsepower is helpful in learning the strategies to read and compensate.

And yes - of course speech problems do not always lead to literacy problems - but there is a connection and thus one red flag to keep an eye on.

thank you everyone

I'm currently looking for recs for good audiologists in my area.


My daughter sometimes talks in a more 'extended' or detailed way. For eg instead of "I want to go too" she'll say "I want to go as well". Or if I point to a picture and ask "where's the cat" she'll say "on top of the house", not "on the house". Or we ask "would you like toast or porridge for breakfast?" she'll often say "hmm, I think I'll have toast thanks". My son had the advanced and 'little professor' vocab from about age 2.5 onwards and I wonder how much more my daughter wants to say, but can't really.

I just heard back from a friend whose two Asperger sons were similar to my daughter and they had lots of articulation work done. They also have CAPD, dyslexia and dyspraxia diagnosed (they're teenagers now).

So it's just something that yes, is a red flag as you say Mich but I'm very confident now in our ability to carry out an appropriate process to help with this

Okay, I usually read all the posts first and I haven't had a chance yet. But I just wanted to chime in because two of my three have had annunciation problems that belied their much higher than age comprehension and use of language.

My first DS was able to speak in sentences at 12 months, but never babbled and tended both to not speak often and to use mainly vowels and not consonants. (He'd had a ton of ear infections and his hearing always tested fine, but I always wondered if he just couldn't hear at the frequency of consonants. Anyway, it was just a personal theory.) He had speech therapy from about 2.5 to 3, but like your experience, he had a speech explosion that we feel had very little if anything to do with the therapy (he got booted out of therapy because his receptive language was years above age-appropriate). What I think did the trick was concentrating on phonics. DS started watching "Between the Lions" on PBS by chance and I noticed that I could discuss with him how, if you change the beginning or ending sounds but kept the vowels the same that it completely changed the meaning of the word. We talked about how when he spoke but didn't say all the letters carefully other people couldn't understand him. We also read a lot of books like "Hop on Pop" for the same reason. For him, that's all it took. (Of course, it could just have been that it just clicked for him because that was the right developmental timing for him.) In 1st grade he had speech therapy at school for two months because he didn't say "ls" properly, but two months was all it took. BTW: He's 12 now and has no speech problems whatsoever, but he still doesn't like to talk much. He has had times over the years, though, where I considered CAPD and dyslexia, and we think he's ADHD-inattentive. He's an A student, but he just has to work so hard at school and has some of the classic characteristics of both of those.

For my younger DS, who is now 7, he just speaks lazily. When he was referred to the speech therapist at school for testing they figured out that he could say all the age-appropriate sounds and then some (which I knew) and that he just doesn't when he's talking or reading. He therefore doesn't qualify for services, but what they suggested is that when he's reading, I have him read out loud to me for at least five minutes a day and during that time he is instructed to specifically concentrate on saying that particular sound in the appropriate words as he reads. So, at first he was concentrating on "c" and "k" sounds. Later he went on to include "g" sounds. The idea is that eventually he will just get used to saying the words correctly in the same way that he is now used to saying the words incorrectly. It really seemed to work at first, and I even saw him catching himself and correcting himself when he pronounced things incorrectly when speaking. It's not working as well recently, though, I think because I got a little more lax about requiring him to read outloud to me, and also because he's a great reader and it's really hard for him to read slowly enough to really focus on his pronunciation and to still comprehend what he's reading. But, since the point of the excercise is really to get him to slow down and focus on pronunciation, I need to get back on track. Luckily, DS7 has not had any social problems due to his annunciation, but it has had some ramifications on further grade acceleration. He, BTW, has absolutely no issues with CAPD or ADHD or dyslexia or anything else. Annunciation is his only thing.

So, anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you are not alone, and I thought I'd throw out a couple of things thay may help.

I think undiagnosed hearing loss is alot more common than people realize. I'm a physician and took my son to the doctor constantly, yet his unilateral hearing loss was totally undetected until I asked for an audiology exam.
The whole experience bothered me so much that I have organized for 2 years now free preschool hearing testing in my area. Last year, we tested 160 4 and 5 years old (all had hearing tests at the doctor's, all had health insurance). We found that 10% had previously undiagnosed hearing loss- most of these kids had speech problems.
If you can't hear, it can make you inattentive; ADD/ADHD. I have always wondered how many kids with "ADD/ADHD" really have a subtle hearing loss. HTH.

thank you again everyone. I am going to make an audiology appointment as soon as I can get a good recommendation. I"m extremely picky with the people that see my children (we have had some horrible experiences with 'professionals').

What a relief. As you mentioned later, 'professionals' can be quite damaging at times, and do need to be heavily screened.

Sorry DYS is short for Davidson Young Scholar program, and only open to folks in the U.S. My bad!

Best Wishes,
Grinity

I have sent you a PM.

There are some similarities between your child and my daughter.
Her current diagnosis is apraxia.

Have you looked at apraxia at all? If not, I'd recommend at least looking into that.

There is also some overlap with apraxia/asperger's, in regards to some of the 'soft' signs of apraxia, such as the potential for sensory items.

My daughter does NOT fit all the signs of apraxia, but when diagnosed, they did explain to me that apraxia is a spectrum.

Tammy