Melody

Just keep being there for especially the mom and the child. Its one of
the hardest things to watch. That your little one isn't or can't talk.

Help them rejoice every word he says. Thats what we do for my
Grandson. And at christmas this year is the first time anyone really
said. He is talking so much better.

Its a long term thing, and it can get better. Just takes time.

Donna

You should have seen the first time he said the word ball. You think we won the lottery. We clap and cheer and he goes nuts smiling. This is all done via Skype because we don't live near the mom or the kid but thank god for Skype. It lets you see little ones growing up and doing stuff. We didn't have any of these gadgets way back in the day. So I shall continue to encourage and listen and hopefully one day I shall have good news to share with all of you.

Thanks much

Melody

I talked about this with my partner. She is a child psychologist with a special interest in working with children who present with developmental delays.

Her comment was that getting the child assessed by a similar health professional would be a good idea.

Hi Melody, one of my nephews had difficulty learning how to talk on his own. He was about the same age as your friend’s son, about 2 and 1/2, when his parents sent him to a speech therapy clinic at a local university. I drove him there myself a couple of times and he was treated by therapy students under the supervision of a qualified therapist.

What I saw the students do was to play games with him with a ball, and when he got involved and expected the ball to be rolled back to him, the student would hold onto the ball while encouraging him to verbalize before he received it back. They worked very diligently on showing him how to make different sounds with his mouth.

This was many years ago and I don’t know if such simple techniques are still used, but in my nephew’s case they worked. He began using simple words after about three weeks of treatment, and he became quite a chatty little guy after about ten weeks. He just needed to be taught how to talk.

Hi there. Sorry I have not been on this board (or any other board) my husband has been in and out of ER's and hospitals due to the fact that he has (side effect of Flomax). He's home now, no more Flomax and he's seeing an urologist who ran all kinds of tests. But that story is for another day.

Now about the 2 1/2 year old who wasn't talking. He is now talking. Not a lot but he understands and replies. He has been in O/T, P/T and speech therapy for quite a while now. It has helped a great deal. He says 3 word sentences. This morning he got up and said 'do pee pee on the potty", so his mother took him into the bathroom and he peed into the bowl.

He is a friendly little fellow but not a chatterer, and he's EXACTLY like his father who is quiet and is an engineer. I think he takes after his father.

The little guy socializes, understands absolutely everything he is told to do but if you are asking 'can you have a conversation with him?" Not at all. He is still in the baby stage of learning to speak. And he knows how to count and he knows his ABC's and if you give him certain objects, like you show him a photo of a hat and then you mix up other photos, he will match the two items together. I think his problem is apraxia.

Time will tell.

And here's the other thing. His mother is 9 months preg and due to give birth next week. She's having a girl. She's been getting him ready to welcome his baby sister. She would ask him questions like: "Are you going to share your toys?" He laughs and says "no". Stuff like that.

How's that for timing?

Mel