My DD3 is currently in ST for an expressive speech delay. She seems to be picking it up really well and we are seeing good results. DD7 will be tested next month and I question DD3 (although we will wait a few yrs before testing). She has some traits but then appears behind. I'm just not sure how to know where she is in terms of behind, average or advanced.
Anyone else have experience with speech and their preschooler is also gifted?

Oh yes! We will ask questions, if she doesn't give an answer (usually she doesn't) we will give 2 choices. That's how we found out she actually does know her colors, etc. All along I thought she didn't know and was concerned. We have been seeing a SLP for about 2 months now and she just started pictures last week.

How long before the delay was reversed (if that is the correct term)?

The book "The Einstein Syndrome" is very good--it discusses how a small percentage of late talking children are very intelligent (tend to be advanced with math, puzzles, etc),and eventually they catch up. My DS was one of those. We could tell he was very bright. He could name all the letters, numbers, etc. by age 2, he could do complicated jigsaw puzzles, etc. But he didn't speak in phrases til 2.5 and even at 3 he was very quiet, didn't ask many questions, didn't always respond appropriately to questions like "why" or "how". Having any sort of reasonable conversation with him was pretty much impossible. But he did not appear to have autism (despite having some autistic traits like toe-walking and hand-flapping and speaking in an odd voice). I took him into a developmental pediatrician when he was 3, who referred us to a psych, and she did an IQ test. He was average in verbal IQ and somewhat above average in performance IQ. They declared him "developmentally delayed". He also had some delays in gross and fine motor skills, for instance he couldn't hop up and down, jump forward very far, walk on a line, hold a pencil with a decent grasp, etc.
Fast forward a few years and now he is 6. His verbal and non-verbal IQ both went up about 25 to 30 points. But there is a 27 point gap between the two. He is 99.7 percentile for non-verbal and 80 something percentile for verbal.His overall IQ is in the 99th percentile. So my speech delayed kid who I was worried was cognitively impaired at age 2 is now doing quite well. He does have developmental coordination disorder, however, which still affects his speech and motor skills. His conversational abilities are fine, but he struggles with fluency and prosody. His speech strikes people as a bit odd. He has an "output" problem similar to apraxia of speech. But is making good improvements despite that.

So far DD3 has seen the ped and SLP. She had auditory testing as both DD's have major issues with ear infections since 6wks old. That I'm sure is a small part of the speech problem. Her speech eval showed that cognitively she is great, but expressive was really low. They said that is part age being that the eval was given weeks after she turned 3 and that is the youngest they can give the test. ASD have been ruled out as well as ped and SLP say they don't see any signs at all.
She was talking by 6m (the norm mama and dada) and her vocabulary was growing but very slowly. When she should've had a vocab of 50 its was more like 25 (at least what was actually spoken, she could've had more words mentally I guess). When she did begin talking more around somewhere between 12-18m she spoke in 2 word phrases. She never spoke 1 word phrases, which I thought was a little odd but exciting especially since she didn't talk much. At first we thought she was just very shy.
I am so curious about her because she is exceptional with memory and directions, both driving directions and following directions. What is so odd is that she didn't walk until 15m and has a speech delay but yet exhibits other signs of giftedness. She is the complete opposite from DD7 but intense just like her at age 3.

DS had a huge vocabulary of single words (probably a couple hundred by 24 months) but just couldn't put them together. Or he could, but not very often. He would also drop a lot of endings off words. Now I know this was probably because of an "output" issue or motor planning.
He did babble as an infant but didn't do the mamamama babababa type babbling until 9-10 months old whereas DD was 5-6 months old. despite the fact that he is now diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder, he crawled by 8 months and was walking well by the time of his first birthday. Then his gross motor development kind of stopped.
He had a lot of ear infections, colds, and fluid in his ears and ear tubes were placed at 30 months. At that point, he started talking in phrases. I'm not sure if that was a coincidence or not, but I often wonder how much role the ear problems played in his development.

Our ds had delayed speech but we didn't recognize that it was delayed until he was older and went through his first set of neuropsych testing. We did realize he wasn't talking, but just thought he was cute and quirky (he was our first child lol!). He didn't vocalize hardly *at all* when he was an infant or toddler. I can count on my hands the number of times he tried out a word, and then once he'd said it he'd drop it and go back to being quiet for months. The only words he even tried before he was almost three years old were "bye" and "ma". The main reasons we never thought twice about it were that he scored ok on the questionnaires that we were given by the peds office when he had his well-child checks, and he clearly was a-ok cognitively - he used sign language and we could tell by his responses he understood everything we communicated to him. When he was 3, he started talking all of a sudden and none of it was testing out words or anything - he was speaking in full-on complex sentences and talking about some very deep and complicated subjects... so we just thought that those early years of no speech happened because he was observing.

Fast forward to early elementary school, and life got very stressful for him. We didn't realize until he was in 2nd grade (and school was literally imploding on him) that he (like blackcat's ds) has developmental coordination disorder. The early speech issues tied in with it, as well as a few other early milestones which ds was late at - crawling, walking etc. He wasn't so late that he was obviously delayed, but he was definitely on the late end of the wide spectrum when those types of milestones typically occur.

As the school years went on, the speech issues that we'd never recognized as challenges showed up as a huge challenge with written expression (particularly open-ended questions) and also some types of verbal expression. Articulation is ok (although he is a bit monotone compared to most people), but he struggles a lot with getting his ideas out.

So yes, it's quite possible to be intellectually gifted and have a speech challenge (and many other types of challenges too ). Outside of his specific areas of challenge, my ds is clearly intellectually gifted, and when he is able to get his thoughts out in writing, they also are on the level you'd expect based on his intelligence.

You're doing exactly what you need to be doing right now - you have your ds in working with an SLP. I wish so much in hindsight that we'd thought to do so when our ds was young, or that someone would have asked and told us that the lack of vocalization was not typical. I don't know that it would have made a difference in where he's at now (he has been working with an SLP for quite a few years on written expression).

I don't know if your ds will have ongoing issues with speech and expressive language - chances are he won't! I hope that what I wrote didn't worry you - I just wanted to let you know that yes, it's quite possible to be gifted and to have an expressive language challenge!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Polar bear, your response doesn't worry me at all I'm happy to have others who can Ivcan talk to about this stuff and give their experiences.

Like your DS, DD3 didn't babble a whole lot as an infant. People would always comment on her extreme observant behavior when we were out. We also knew by what we asked that she understood what we were saying but before 3 thought she chose not to talk. She talked but not as much as our DD7. We wondered if DD7s intensity and constant talking caused DD3 to be quiet. As well as DD3 being very good at expressing what she wanted non verbally we thought maybe we didn't give her the chance to talk.
She is doing very well with ST (she scored 1% for expressive but were told that her age is a factor being right at 3)and we have the option to put her in the local preschool program for delays. I haven't yet and read a thread about it and question whether I should.
I looked over a lot of threads and one stuck out about preschoolers with anxiety. The SLP also asked if DD3 has anxiety out of the home and I never gave it a second thought. Now I feel like maybe she does as when home she is vocal, even if not understood well, intense and so sweet. She is very observant and change seems to be a little hard on her. She doesn't like being away from me and DD7 is definitely a safety blanket for her so to speak. I worry that if I place her in the preschool program she won't participate at all. I know for sure she'll tantrum at drop offs (tried regular preschool at 2 for 3m and she tantrumed every drop off). I know private and preschool therapy works great but I worry about her. She is doing so well privately I don't want to reverse anything.

DS did the same type of thing as polarbear's DS, where when he did finally talk in sentences they were basically gramatically correct. He didn't do any "babytalk" or go through predictable speech phases.

polarbear, how is an expressive language disorder diagnosed? I did take DS in for a private speech eval abou 1.5 years ago and she gave him a language assessment, and he scored above average. But yet, I do worry about some aspects of his expressive speech. Sometimes I can't figure out what he's talking about. DD was so advanced for speech that it's hard for me to even know what is "normal". But yet he seems to struggle sometimes with open ended questions, even things like "who did you play with at recess." More often that not I'll just get a shrug or an "I don't know."

My DS had 0 words and didn't even try to talk or make consistent sounds at 19 months. We did speech therapy from then until age 3 when he "graduated" from the program. He started school at 4 (we have 2 years of kindergarten before grade 1) and barely spoke all that year at school but was fairly average at home. Transitions were always hard for him even as a baby. He was/is a VERY observant kid and likes to observe before doing anything. Intense is one of the top words I'd use to describe him. By Grade 1 he was finally starting to feel comfortable at school and then he wouldn't shut up We were then told to have him evaluated for ADHD a couple months into grade 1 and he turned out gifted/likely LD (processing speed was really low).

All of his other milestones he met early or on time. He rolled early, crawled at the usual time, walked at 12 months, rode a 2 wheeler at 5, etc. When he was doing ST the therapist commented that he was really smart and his comprehension was advanced. His writing has been slow to develop but seems to finally be clicking (he's now 7). He now has a crazy vocabulary and talks non stop when he has someone who will listen (and he's feeling comfortable). He is still fairly anxious around new people and trying new things but is making improvements there as well.

Best of luck!

Our DS7 was severely delayed in speech. At 18 months he wouldn't talk, wouldn't react to his name and did not seem to understand anything we were saying to him. I had him evaluated at that point and the results were that he was up to 70% delayed in speech (he was at a 6-9 month old level). He didn't really speak sentences until he was almost 3, but he was counting objects and knew letters and numbers before he was 2. He has told us that he remembers when he was very young he couldn't understand what we were saying to him, it just sounded gibberish.
He's always been a kid who just kind of gets stuff overnight. That was the case with walking, reading, math, any skill set for that matter. He wouldn't know or do anything and basically mastered it overnight just because he felt like it.
Fast forward: at age 6 we had him tested because we had a lot of question marks about his uneven development, emotional issues and some concerns from school as well. At that time his verbal IQ came back at 99,8 percentile. So go figure. He does like to talk a lot though. He can start a conversation with anybody, anytime, anywhere...

blackcat, I'm wandering off the OT for a minute, but in reading through your reply here (very similar to my ds, definitely didn't go through the predictable speech phases) - my ds also didn't go through any of the predictable early writing phases either and he didn't seem to go through any of the typical early reading stages. I wonder how much of that is all wrapped up in DCD?


My ds was diagnosed by an SLP but not until he was 10 years old - it took that long for any of us to put the pieces together and realize he was struggling with expressive language. The most obvious challenge was his difficulties with writing, particularly open-ended assignments, but as he got older he started telling me that there were times when he couldn't get the words together to know what to say (verbal). Somewhere along the way I read a brief one-sentence type blurb in a book (I think it was one of the Eides' books) that mentioned that writing difficulties in gifted children could be due to expressive language challenges and that SLP therapy could help. I had a friend who was a school SLP, so I asked her and she said absolutely. When he was assessed (privately, he didn't qualify for school SLP)... his scores were either average or off the charts on the CELF, but there was a huge discrepancy and nothing in between. On the two subtests where his scores were "only" average, the SLP who evaluated also noted that it took him a *very* long time to come up with his answers, much more so than on the other parts of the test, which he scores up in the 99th percentile on. The discrepancy in scores, combined with parent interview were what were used to diagnose his expressive language disorder.


I get a *lot* of the "I don't know" answers to things ds should know - especially when I asked about specific things during his school day when he was younger (still get quite a bit of it going on). It took me a long time to realize that in spite of his incredible memory (which is amazing)... he doesn't know how to tell me about some of those very simple things. Open-ended questions are really tough for him. He also has a tough time with summarizing information (verbally or in writing), knowing what details to retell etc and how to organize what he writes.

polarbear

Ok, thanks. The language assessment was done by a private SLP, but of course she was not aware of other aspects of his IQ (like the high non-verbal). It's probably a weakness and he uses the giftedness to compensate, but I don't know how much of a gap there needs to be before it's a "disability". Also, he seems to be making so much improvement over where he was a couple years ago when he didn't even ask questions. It's defintely something I'm keeping my eye on. I don't know how much is asyncronous brain development, how much is DCD, or something else. His SLP at the school doesn't see any problem so I think it would be pointless to ask her to do an evaluation. If we got another private eval, I would want to make sure it's someone who understands 2e kids and knows what to look for. I have been so frustrated with people not having any idea what is going on with his speech and all the oddities, like the voice, the prosody, the fluency issues, etc. and not knowing how to treat it. He has had 3 SLPs with the school system so far and all of them seem clueless.

Blackcats last post makes me wonder about getting DD3 a psych eval. The psych DD7 is seeing next month for a full eval (more so school purposes than anything) works mainly with gifted and 2e children.
I was thinking about waiting to get DD3 eval being that would have no barring on our everyday lives but now that I think about it, it would be nice to know where she is exactly cognitively.

Should I wait to test her as planned or do it now?

I don't think I would bother with an IQ test unless you have concerns there is a cognitive impairment (i.e. below average IQ). With DS at age 3, and all of his various delays, we had no idea that what we were dealing with was a 2e situation. But the testing back then didn't even show that. It was helpful to see that he didn't have any serious deficiencies, and it was helpful to see that he was very strong in some areas (like visual spatial ability) as opposed to verbal, but at that age it didn't really tell us enough to give us a real diagnosis or anything. So we walked away with "develomentally delayed", just like what we had when we walked in. Another reason I took him to the psych was he had all kinds of oddities indicative of autism spectrum, like delayed speech, hand flapping, toe walking, odd animal noises and speech patterns, etc. She observed him and ruled that out.

Thanks ladies! SLP and ped agree there is no autism or anything similar going on. Her speech eval showed cognitively she is great and on track, maybe advanced. SLP said as far as they can tell and based off the eval her only delay is expressive, everything has checked out fine.

I'll wait and see how DD7's eval goes. If it shows high IQ then when DD3 reaches school age I'll address getting an eval then. I don't want to get inaccurate results or spend that kind of money if 3 is a too young and won't make any difference right now.