My boy has forgotten how to talk

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

He’s going to turn three in six weeks time. About nine months ago I made a list in his baby book of all the things he was saying at the time - about 15 regular words and phrases.

Looking over that list today - there’s exactly one that he still says - “this way”. He also say “hello”, “no” and “oh no” - that’s about it.

I just scared myself silly looking up a thing called Heller’s syndrome on the web.

He had a speech/development assessment today with the Child Health Nurse, which he comprehensively flunked. Except for building towers out of blocks - he aced that bit. Zeros all the way otherwise. We’re on the list to go talk to a pediatrician sometime in the next few weeks (that is a Big Deal over hear - kids don’t see pediatricians unless there’s something really wrong, they see GPs)

Any of you guys who are the praying type - well, I’d appreciate it.

Stories of kids who didn’t talk till unfeasibly late ages and then caught up and are now quite fine would also be very welcome.

Stories of kids who didn’t talk till osme unfeasibly late age and then caught up

2

Sending prayers. Keeping it positive, of course Einstein is reputed not to have talked until age 4, although his biographers now believe he began talking between 2 and 3 - still late, but not as late as the legend.

You might be very interested in this book right now: The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late.

Best of luck to you, m’dear. If there *is *a problem, early intervention is key, so you’re doing exactly the right thing in taking him for evaluation now.

3

Sending good thoughts your way. My 7 year old son was late to talk (close to 4) and once he started he hasn’t stopped. My middle boy is 4 and 3 months now and has been in speech development for almost a year because his daycare teacher pointed out that he was behind the other kids. He has caught up dramatically and we expect him to be fine. Sometimes the “light turns on” and it all comes quickly. Definitely worth having it checked out though.

4

Has his hearing been checked? My brother and brother-in-law were both late talkers (around 4) and didn’t really get their acts together until they got tubes in their ears.

5

That’s an excellent point. I forgot to mention that both of mine also improved after getting adnoids removed and ear tubes.

6

None of my cousin’s four kids, and also my nephew, talked until they were in kindergarten.

In the case of my cousin’s kids, there was an impoverished environment. They’ve caught up now that they’re in school and are perfectly decent talkers.

In the case of my nephew, who is the first child of older, affluent, well-educated parents, he got tubes in his ears just before starting kindergarten, and has absolutely blossomed since then. A year earlier it seemed like he couldn’t listen, follow directions, answer questions, or express what was bothering him or what he wanted. He was a joy to be around, as you can imagine. Within four months of tubes/Kindergarten he was articulate, playful, and charming. It was amazing.

In addition to getting tubes in his ears, he had his adenoids removed. He is eating and sleeping much better than he was, which must have affected his personality also.

I’m just a layperson making observations here, but… in my experience some small children don’t talk until they need to, and they need to when they’re put in a classroom environment where no one can be bothered to guess and cajole and figure out what they want (and where there is peer pressure from other children who talk well). Parents are so attentive and so tuned-in, why bother to make an effort?

7

My wife’s little brother was a late talker - in his case it was because his siblings were much older (15-16 yrs) and did a lot of stuff without being asked (which meant he never needed to learn *how *to ask). e.g. He’d point at a cup and it’d be brought over to him

As soon as my wife and the rest of teh family stopped reacted to non-verbal requests he very quickly started talking, as it was the only way he got what he wanted.

8

My sister developed a vocabulary pretty early, and then just shut up for a good long while. Then she started speaking full sentences. My mom said they figured that once she got a bunch of words, she realized that she still couldn’t communicate effectively and it really pissed her off when people didn’t understand what she meant. I was too young to remember, but apparently she’d have tantrums when she couldn’t get basic messages across so the grown-ups understood it the first time.

Stuff like she’d be thirsty, but didn’t know “thirsty” so she would try to ask for a drink. Mom would say “Oh, would you like some milk?” My sister didn’t want milk, she wanted water or juice to quench her thirst, so she’d say “No.” Then she would not get a drink, because my mom didn’t understand what she did want, so they’ have to start all over again. My sister would try to ask for a drink. Mom would look confused and say “Oh, you do want milk.” My sister would say “No.” and so wouldn’t get a drink. So around they would go.

Made my sister crazy! Like her limited vocabulary was a tease - not really enough to be useful. So she stopped talking until she figured out more words and basic sentence structures, so she could talk with people more effectively without getting frustrated. Once she could say “I’m thirsty. Water, please.” she was talking again.

9

My youngest brother didn’t talk for a while when he was younger. He had two older siblings and we didn’t play with him much, plus he had a really bad speech impediment. Once they put tubes in his ears and he got some speech therapy, he was a bit more confident in speaking. He’s still a bit shy, but he opens up.

I, also, was a late talker. I had a stutter and a lisp and kids made fun of me, so I shut up. Then I got speech therapy and started talking just fine.

Now, my brother and I sound more like psychological, intentional speech delays. We were a bit older before we got quiet.

10

Thanks guys for all your responses. They were JUST what I was looking for.

I actually logged off straight after writing the OP, and went to bed to have a good cry and a sleep (it’s currently half past midnight here). Succeeded on both counts, but woke up after an hour or so with my heart thumping at 88 beats per minute (yes, I checked…) having had a nightmare about drowning in mud.

Lovely.

Anyway, I love the look of that book WhyNot - looks very soothing in my current state. I might have known there’s probably a million and one books on the subject of late talking out there. God knows there’s books about everything related to child development these days.

corvidae yes, that is on my list. I have a referral to an audiologist which I’m going to get on to tomorrow. I know he can hear because he does respond to stuff when I’m not near him. For instance, if we’re walking somewhere and he’s in front of me and veers off in an odd direction, a call of “Wrong Way! Follow Rachel!” will put him back on track. But there’s the possibility that he may be missing frequencies or some such wierd shit. Anyway, that’s what we have professionals for, to tell us about.

Things that currently make me feel good - he does follow a range of simple instructions well. Follow mummy, get your cup, brush teeth, dinner time, be gentle, put it in the box, off to the car(/bike/train - different direction for each transport mechanism) and so on and so on. Not brilliant, but not completely awful for his age. He mkes eye contact, plays pretend, smiles, doesn’t obsess over stuff and eats a wide variety of foods (yes, I’ve been checking out autism websites too. The internet really is a wonderful resource for obsessing over at 1am)

Things that make me feel not good - among the things he has said in his life, his name is not there. Nor is the name of either of his sisters, or mum, dad, granny or any other person. Which I think is probably a huge red flag (sigh). And he doesn’t respond to it either.

Anyway, I think I might have calmed myself down enough to go for more sleep now. Maybe after reading as much as Amazon will let me about Einstein talking late…

11

Aspidistra, you said he did well building a tower of blocks, was that modeled and/or would he normally build a tower if simply given blocks? And the other tasks, was he shown what to do, or told?

My mom was a difficult kid when she was four to five. She often didn’t pay any attention to what she was told, and therefore got into a lot of trouble at home and at school. And no one noticed that she’d gone deaf until her kindergarten teacher walked behind her and slammed a book on the desk behind her: mom didn’t even flinch. Her adenoids had somehow grown in a way to block her eustachian tubes like this, and once she had them removed she could hear again. Apparently it took people so long to realize she couldn’t hear them because she’d learned to read lips but never mentioned the fact that she couldn’t hear them!

12

We gave him the blocks and I said “lets build a tower”. But he does like building towers in general, too, and it is kind of the obvious thing to do with blocks.

Most of the other tasks were “tell me the word for this picture in the book” type things, which I know he’d bomb at. There was also “can you draw a line like me?” (he didn’t, just scribbled) and would he say or respond to his name, and hold up fingers for his age. There was also “hand me the blue block” type stuff, but he was pissed off that she’d stopped him building another tower and just threw the lot on the floor. She remarked that he “gets frustrated easily”, which I guess is fair comment

13

This happened to my youngest brother. He was verbose at age 2, then lost almost all of his vocabulary. I was pretty young at the time, so I don’t entirely remember the details, but he was put through extensive speech therapy which didn’t seem to be making much headway. My parents had him tested for eligibility for my county’s special ed programs. The results came back showing that he actually had a sky-high IQ. So we just waited.

It seems like the possible reason for his speech loss was ear infections that temporarily damaged his hearing. Anyway, he recovered within a couple of years and now at the age of 15 it’s hard to get him to shut up :slight_smile:

14

My eldest daughter, who is scary smart, stopped talking about that age because her ears were stopped up by gook enough that she could hear loud noises, and generally could keep up with the flow of life, but normal conversation was just garbled noise, like she was under water. Happened again in kindergarten. She would go and play just fine, but the teacher monotone she tuned out, because it made no sense. Two sets of tubes later, she’s nearly finished her degree in special education.

15

WAG

My Mom used to say that I was late developing speech skills. She “blamed” it on my older sister who decided that she would do all the talking for me.

Does your son have an older brother(s) or sister(s) that might be doing all the talking for him?

16

Something along these lines IME. My sister’s second child passed all the health checks on speech and hearing at 2. As her vocab grew she found she couldn’t still get her message across. Rather than have a frustrating conversation about “tell me what you really want” she decided it was easier to get what she wanted without talking. So she just pointed, mimed, shook her head or smiled. Her older brother particularly (who picked up the title C-3P0) and parents would read the body language and finish the sentences for her.

It required a concerted effort from everybody, family, friends and teachers (the situation didn’t fully resolve until after she started school) to simply let the girl speak.

Captains her school debating team now.

17

I’ve heard lots of stories from my SO’s mother, about how my other half didn’t say anything, except the word ‘car’, until he was over 4 years old. I must admit, he does find some words hard to say still, at 27. But he’s also very dyslexic too, so I’m not sure if that’s down to not speaking till he was 4, or the dyslexia. No matter, because he’s an intelligent, articulate person, who is awesome. He just has a hard time with pronunciation. I must add, this frequently drives him crazy, and causes him embarassment. He is always aware he isn’t saying the words right. But after practicing words in private with me, he usually gets them right. I wouldn’t worry un-necessarily right now, until your doctor tells you otherwise. Either way, good wishes going your way. Will be a worrying time for you. All the best, x x

18

My grandmother had a story about someone from her own childhood that hardly spoke until about age four. According to the story they were riding somewhere in a car, or maybe it was a buggy, since this would have been around 1910. The little girl in question had dropped her hat and was reaching for it futilely, making non-verbal sounds. One of the older people said, “If you want your hat, you’ll need to say ‘I want my hat’”. Which is exactly what she did.

19

Maybe he’s like Einstein and he’s just saving it all up for later.

I had a nephew like this. Developmentally, everything else was fine…he was growing, getting all his teeth, learned to crawl, walk, eat, drink from a sippy, etc…but he NEVER said a word until a little past 4 1/2 (my sister was frantic and had him seen my dozens of specialists). Then at 4 1/2 he started saying words and within about 6 months he was speaking in full sentences. He had some speech issues (said r like w, sh like s, etc) for several years but now (at age 14) he’s a perfectly normal, well adjusted kid.

BTW my nephew seemed to UNDERSTAND what others were saying before he finally spoke up. Does your child seem to understand you? If not, then I would definitely have his hearing checked. If so, he might just be a late bloomer in this regard.

Sending good vibes that you are just worrying over nothing…

20

I have three daughters. My oldest did everything ‘ahead of schedule’. She’s 23 now. My middle daughter, now 19, didn’t say a single word until after her third birthday. With intensive speech therapy, though, she was just fine. Now? Try to shut her up! (Though it would hurt her worse if you took her ‘texting thumb’ away!) My youngest, now 10, also didn’t talk until age 3. She’s fine now.

However, since he did have a vocabulary and now doesn’t, it’s definitely worth checking with a professional. Chances are excellent, though, that he’ll be fine with a little intervention!

Oh, prayers headed out!