Re: Speech Delay help

Nikki wrote:
SNIP
> The teachers thought he was just shy and that is why he didn't ever talk to
> them. He did talk more at home but in hindsight he was not where he should
> have been. They had a batch of students come in and he completely failed
> his hearing screening which is what led us to eventually get therapy. It
> turns out his hearing is just fine but he just wasn't responding to the
> students ;-) Either way, it was a good thing as he was way way way behind
> in both receptive and expressive language when we had him evaluated at 3yo.
> Therapy did help him a lot. As a bigger kid language is just not his thing.
> He rarely rarely sings, has no interest in nursery rhymes (never repeats
> them), is having a hard time with reading, etc. He has had further testing
> as a kindergartener and this points to an auditory processing delay but he
> is to young to test for that specifically. As a first grader his teachers
> notice mostly the great difficulty he has paying attention and staying
> focused. It is hard to say if that is an attention problem or a symptom of
> auditory processing difficulties. He's only 6yo and I think in the next
> couple of years they will be able to pin point that better.

Some 6 year-olds CAN be tested for APD. It all depends upon their
development and ability to attend to the task, not chronological age.
One was tested at about 6-1/2. A lot of audiologists and school
districts are hung up on age 8 as a minimum for testing, but AFAIK
that's not true. There's an excellent google APD group where that's
been discussed several times (and where I get a lot of my info).

I'm sure you already know all of this, but (i) make sure he's sitting
in the front of the class, in a position where he's looking straight at
the teacher; (ii) he should also be seated away from distractions and
background noises, like a gerbil, fish tank, or another kid who talks a
lot; and (iii) make sure that the teacher breaks down instructions for
him -- go to the shelf, take out the book, turn to page 40 and read is
probably more than he can process right now.

> A very long winded way of getting to my point that I take the language thing
> very seriously because I regret not getting Hunter evaluated much sooner.
> The testing and evaluation are so easy and fun for the kid. Language has
> such a huge impact on one's life. I would certainly recommend that you
> (general you - not you specifically ;-) see a therapist in real life though
> as there are many faucets to language and it takes a professional to see
> each individual child to really know what is going on.
>
Don't beat yourself up. I KNEW that there was a problem with One's
language, but let myself be lulled into complacency by teachers who
kept saying that he didn't have a problem.

.

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