Not sure what “disability” means in this case. I hpe your son turns into a chatter box as soon as possible.
You have arranged an impressive amount of help. The only thing I can add is does a disability designation get more support?
If at all practical, you want your son to mainstream from kindergarten. Getting into mainstream is tougher and tougher as time goes on. Peers progress normally. Non mainstreamers have less mainstream challenges and it’s a real struggle to catch up enough to mainstream. My daughter mainstreams in a science class for 10-15 minutes a day if she’s by herself, and maybe can do the full class if a para is with her. This is huge progress for her in the 3rd grade. Previously she only mainstreamed in PE, library and music.
So, my point is if a disability label gets resources and helps you son both mainstream and be successful in class, then go for it. If the disability doesn’t help, then there is no point.
I’m not sure if I’m phrasing this is the best way, but for me personally, it was a journey to get to the point where I could say out loud “I have a special needs child on the autism spectrum.” There’s a lot of baggage there. It took me years to admit my daughter has a disability and wasn’t going to catch up any time soon if ever. So, as much as you are able, separate the “disability” from “will this help my son or not”?
Two things: attaching a label to a child, which is I assume what you’re having a hard time with, does not change that child in any way. It took us a long, long time to be ready to hear that our daughter was autistic. Receiving the diagnosis didn’t change her in the slightest. All it did was make it easier to get the help that she needs. If getting disability for your son makes it easier for you and for him, and helps him get what he needs, do it with a clear conscience.
As for dealing with other peoples’ opinions, that’s a hard one. We were lucky enough to not have a lot of that. Yes, people should generally butt out of other peoples’ parenting. But they don’t. All you can do is try to take it in the spirit in which it is intended. They’re (presumably) just trying to help.
Exactly as Manda JO said, I’m speaking from my heart here only because I hear your pain and want to offer something. This isn’t advice. It’s more like running up and putting a grubby pebble in your hand.
I worked with kids aged 4 and 5 who had speech delays, sometimes severe, and some were fine. They were often intelligent and just needed their own time or their own way to get where they were going. Some kids had developmental disabilities (NOT saying that’s it!) and you know what? They’re fine too.
Here’s what I think about diagnosis: a diagnosis in these cases is something that is meant to be useful to you. You utilise it. Maybe it helps explain something to you personally, maybe it gives you access to services. If it isn’t helping, throw it out. If it isn’t true but it is useful, use it. It’s isn’t meant to do anything other than help you. (You probably know all this, but I’m still talking this through with a friend who wonders if he is an Aspie. I say: that’s not who you are, it’s just something you can use if you need it, ie if it helps you explain something about you to yourself or if it gets you something you need or explains how you are to someone else. I don’t need you to explain anything about you, and Aspergers could never tell me anything about you.)
Finally: I wish I could have him in my class! I currently teach English to little children in the Netherlands. We sing and dance, do charades, run around, do art and generally just act silly. Because nobody speaks English, it’s all fine. We don’t have stupid rules like “no rolling on the floor” or “speak proper words”. We just express ourselves in all kinds of ways, and for the kids eventually it starts coming out as English. If it doesn’t that’s fine too. It might be nice if there is some sort of theatre or music or movement class for young children that has the same kind of philosophy. One where how you express yourself doesn’t matter and is respected as equal and encouraged. Perhaps you already have a space like that?
{{{{hugzzz}}}} Can I suggest that you seem to be the one in most need of help right now? You’re doing all that is physically possible but seem to be under tremendous emotional stress. Give yourself a chance to set that aside through therapy and/or a support group. Let yourself grieve for what may never be so you can better see what is. Your son may never stand on second base chanting “Batter batter” but he might be the kid on the sidelines keeping stats. He might not be at the same place as other kids in your family or circle, but if he finds his place he’ll be all right. Your place is to support him and love him and enjoy him, not be ashamed or feel guilty or constantly explaining to others. A lot of 24 year olds don’t know what they’re going to do with their lives; give your son some time and give yourself a break. Accept help so you’re not concentrating all your energy on the Problem. Try not to neglect the rest of your life. Try to loosen your grip as you keep a handle on things. See where things go.
I thought I might revive this thread one more time to say that my son is finally talking.
He’ll be a first grader this fall, and so far he’s on-level with his peers, except for his speech, though he’s improving rapidly. He’s made tremendous progress in the last 6 months. We’re starting to relax a little.
He’s going to a weekend sleepaway camp (YMCA) in a couple of weeks - a big step for him and for me, too! He loves horseback riding, playing with his iPad, and being a generally silly little goofball. He’s doing great.
Fantastic. You’ve made my day with such hopeful news.
You’re not out of the woods yet, but it has to feel beyond fantastic to see significant payoff for the 5ish years of non-stop labor this has represented. For both you and the kiddo.
I had a speech delay. It being another era my parents were told I was probably retarded. According to mom, I eventually began to speak quite suddenly, fluently and wouldn’t stop talking.
I got the same story from a former coworker about one of her daughters. Her first words were apparently "mom, then “dad”, then the name of her favorite toy/blanket, then “I want to go to the bathroom” (complete sentence).
Friend of mine loved the therapist and her speech didn’t improve much at all. Until the therapist was replaced with a cranky unpleasent grouch. My friend was old enough to work out that if she cleaned up her speech, she wouldn’t have to go back to the therapist anymore…
It’s never too early to start a second language. Babies normally find sign language a little easier to start with, parents normally find a second language a little more difficult, one of the most charming things I’ve ever read was a deaf parent describing the joy of seeing her kid forming his first little words with his little hands.
Cripes! Some people just don’t like talking much.
I can understand your distress – I love talking and would be stressed if my kids didn’t like talking too – and I can understand your MIL’s pushiness – that’s what grandparents do and are for – but the rest of them can just go and stick their head in a toilet.
If you want me to like you, tell me how great my kid is. That’s not hard, and it’s not rocket science: most used car salesmen seem to have worked it out. If you haven’t got anything nice to say about our kids, STFU.
That’s fabulous. My little one has also made progress after several months of preschool and over a year of speech therapy but I still worry about her every single day of the year.
Both of my grandchildren were late talkers even though both of the parents were very early talkers. At 6 my grandaughter is bright and doing very well in school. My grandson is now 5 and never stops talking but talks so fast he is hard to understand. Both children are very bright and creative but for some reason were late with speech. It worried me at first. I think they were about in the middle of 3 years old before they really started talking fairly well.
His progress continues to accelerate. He’s navigating first grade speaking for himself (last year he used an iPad as a speech box) and so far is able to keep up with his peers. He’s a little behind on reading, but right on target with everything else. A lot of the efforts that were being channeled into his speech last year are starting to get redirected towards his reading these days.
I know that a few worried mom lurkers like to follow this thread, and I know I would have appreciated a thread like this a few years ago with the details over time on a kid with an extreme example of apraxia.
At 6 1/2, his speech sounds a little like that of someone who was born deaf - not EXACTLY so, but just for descriptive purposes bear with me - the vowels are flat and the voice throaty and monotone. He speaks slowly and with odd emphasis on the sounds that give him the most trouble. People who don’t know him and aren’t familiar with his speech can’t generally understand him, although this is beginning to improve.
Things like grammar and sentence structure and phrasing are not what you’d expect to hear from a first grader - misuse of I and Me, verbs conjugated incorrectly, that sort of thing. Like what you might expect of someone who is learning English as a second language.
My almost 12 yr old has had a speech issues all his life thanks to a wicked case of hypotonia (aka Chronic Low Muscle Tone).
It’s not that he can’t speak (because oh god…he will talk your freaking ear off if you let him, esp if he’s excited) but speaking is made more difficult for him because he has issues making his lips/tongue do what he wants them to do in order to speak clearly. Especially if he’s excited, which usually prompts us to remind him to calm down and speak more slowly so that he can be more clearly understood.
People will ALWAYS act like you’re failing, OP. Because somehow if a child is somehow ‘deficient’ in one thing or another, that automatically means (in some peoples’ minds anyhow) that the parents didn’t do their job properly. And there are about a million and a half things that parents, especially mothers, seem to fail at in the eyes of other people who can be super judgemental.
Didn’t breastfeed? Your child is doomed to be a drooling idiot. Can’t tie their own shoes by the time they’re 4 or 5? You failed. Child has speech delay or physical delays? Whassamatta, mama…did you drink and take drugs while you were pregnant? Your child is on the autism spectrum? Yeah while your child is flipping burgers at McDonald’s mine’s gonna be chillin wid his millins (I had somebody say that to me once…I wish I was kidding).
I’ve learned to just give zero fucks because it’s not worth stressing over. Your child will be who he is meant to be and as long as you do your personal best to help him get where he wants to go in life, then everybody else can fuck right off.
I just realized I responded to this thread twice early on, the second time not realizing I’d already commented!
It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come since 2012. We still have speech, mostly for auditory processing, and OT for sensory and motor function but she’s so much different at ten… almost eleven. She speaks like an adult. She has little use for other children though, and that makes socializing complicated. Sadly they don’t seem to have much use for her either. She is now homeschooled because it was just too much for her, the bullying and teasing and freezing out by other students. But she has social skills groups twice a week and she seems to get along great with other children with autism and language delays/disorder. They seem to understand each other, and often, during games especially I see they seem to work together without even speaking. They have more compassion for one another too.
We just express ourselves in all kinds of ways, and for the kids eventually it starts coming out as English. If it doesn’t that’s fine too. It might be nice if there is some sort of theatre or music or movement class for young children that has the same kind of philosophy. One where how you express yourself doesn’t matter and is respected as equal and encouraged. Perhaps you already have a space like that?
Can I suggest that you seem to be the one in most need of help right now? You’re doing all that is physically possible but seem to be under tremendous emotional stress. Give yourself a chance to set that aside through therapy and/or a support group. Let yourself grieve for what may never be so you can better see what is. Your son may never stand on second base chanting “Batter batter” but he might be the kid on the sidelines keeping stats. He might not be at the same place as other kids in your family or circle, but if he finds his place he’ll be all right. Your place is to support him and love him and enjoy him, not be ashamed or feel guilty or constantly explaining to others. A lot of 24 year olds don’t know what they’re going to do with their lives; give your son some time and give yourself a break. Accept help so you’re not concentrating all your energy on the Problem. Try not to neglect the rest of your life. Try to loosen your grip as you keep a handle on things. See where things go.