Christy Putnam

My 2.4 year old communicates with me using mostly sign language or other
ways to let me know what he is verbally saying because most of the time it
is inaudible though he is definitely saying *something*. I have to
translate to everyone, including my dh. Recently (near 2 year b-day) we had
his well child visit mainly to find out growth particulars since we don't
vax nor care too much about what the dr. says in general. One thing she
said that sticks in my head is "You may be able to tell what he is saying
now but others should be able to understand him by his 3rd birthday." This
sticks because his father had a horrible time with speech when he was
younger and our niece is almost 5 and there are still several things she
says that not even her parents can translate. I am a pretty big proponent
of early detections and interventions when warranted and possible yet at
this point I am torn between having an assessment done when he is 3 or just
waiting things out knowing children do develop differently.



I would like to hear what you all have decided to do and why.



With Utmost Gratitude,
Christy Putnam
Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)

My Blog <http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-T5EDDQohfrQSzRSxKyT.uBV3VXEhgoA5> -
Our Life
Our Yahoo <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FYI-OKC/> Group: FYI-OKC
Watch this clip, then <http://www.whyarewepoisoningourchildren.com/> ask me
about alternatives!

One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
letting go of the perceived need to live by
the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Melody Flurry

I don't know if this will help or not, but when my son was about 3, he started to stutter. He hadn't started talking as early as some children do, and I probably wouldn't have been bothered by that if other people hadn't said things that made me feel that something was wrong. (Things like "well you know, my daughter was talking at 6 months").

Well, the last straw was my mother-in-law. She started telling me about all the children she knew or ever had known, and about how what I needed to do was have my son evaluated and start speech therapy as soon as possible, because the longer I waited the worse it would get and so on and so on. By the way, she said these things in front of my son, which made me furious, even though I normally get along with her quite well. Since she was a nurse, I paid attention to what she said, but I felt in my gut that she was wrong. I did some internet research, and discovered that what my son was doing was normal, and he did not exhibit all of the signs of having a real problem. Basically, his vocabulary was increasing faster than his tongue was able to pronounce the words, and he was trying to speak faster than he was able. He is 9 now, and has no problem whatsoever.

One thing I read that may help you is that if you sense a speech issue, you should try to speak in a little slower pace, and speak very distinctly to your child. (Think about the way Mr. Rogers spoke). Not unusually slow, but not as fast as maybe you normally speak. It sounds as though your son is trying to say things and he knows what he is saying, it's just hard for you and others to understand. Personally, I feel that this will work itself out over time, but I know how frustrating it is right now (especially dealing with others). As long as you know that he understands you, and you are patient in trying to understand him, his ability to communicate will improve. If however, you sense that a hearing problem is involved, or after some time passes you don't sense any improvement, by all means seek out professional opinions from more than one source. Go with your gut feeling--you're the mom.

Melody Flurry :-)



Christy Putnam <personal_balance@...> wrote:
My 2.4 year old communicates with me using mostly sign language or other
ways to let me know what he is verbally saying because most of the time it
is inaudible though he is definitely saying *something*. I have to
translate to everyone, including my dh. Recently (near 2 year b-day) we had
his well child visit mainly to find out growth particulars since we don't
vax nor care too much about what the dr. says in general. One thing she
said that sticks in my head is "You may be able to tell what he is saying
now but others should be able to understand him by his 3rd birthday." This
sticks because his father had a horrible time with speech when he was
younger and our niece is almost 5 and there are still several things she
says that not even her parents can translate. I am a pretty big proponent
of early detections and interventions when warranted and possible yet at
this point I am torn between having an assessment done when he is 3 or just
waiting things out knowing children do develop differently.



I would like to hear what you all have decided to do and why.



With Utmost Gratitude,
Christy Putnam
Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)

My Blog -
Our Life
Our Yahoo Group: FYI-OKC
Watch this clip, then ask me
about alternatives!

One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
letting go of the perceived need to live by
the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Yahoo! Groups Links






---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Christy Putnam

Thank you J



With Utmost Gratitude,
Christy Putnam
Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)

My Blog <http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-T5EDDQohfrQSzRSxKyT.uBV3VXEhgoA5> -
Our Life
Our Yahoo <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FYI-OKC/> Group: FYI-OKC
Watch this clip, then <http://www.whyarewepoisoningourchildren.com/> ask me
about alternatives!

One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
letting go of the perceived need to live by
the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Robin Bentley

My dd, now 12, didn't use speech much until she was past 3. She had lots of
signing of her own making for what she needed plus, as she talked more, her
own words for things. My La Leche League leader counseled patience. I also
read a book by Thomas Sowell called "Late Talking Children" and did some
other research. It helped to allay any fears I had. She talks just fine
now with quite a large vocabulary (and at length sometimes <g>) and has for
many years.



Fluent reading came later for her than the expected-in-school timeline.
After the speech experience, I didn't worry. She learned in her own time,
in her own way, after being surrounded by words in most of what she did. In
the meantime, for both "skills", I interpreted for her, by letting others
know what she was saying/wanting and reading things to her or helping her
read something if she wanted the help. It was my job, as her advocate, to
do so.



I would wait it out, based on my experience. I would read everything
possible that counters the interventionists to see if anything resonates. I
would take a deep breath and sweetly help him in his interactions
until/unless I could see that it's a problem for *him*. Then, I would
revisit the interventions. I don't think it would be too late to wait six
months, a year even.



Robin B.

Mum to "late" talker/reader/whatever and totally amazing dd











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

space_and_freedom

--- In [email protected], "Robin Bentley"
<robin.bentley@...> wrote:
>>
>
> I would wait it out, based on my experience. I would read
> everything possible that counters the interventionists to see if
> anything resonates. I would take a deep breath and sweetly help him
> in his interactions until/unless I could see that it's a problem for
> *him*.

This is a very important point, as far as I'm concerned, to do
something only when it starts to bother your DS.

When my daughter was 2.5 my Mom started worrying she might need help
with speech. Unfortunately her grandmotherly concern did lead to much
extra worrying on my part.

My daughter was hard to understand, and after she turned 3 her spoken
vocabulary exploded. I made a conscious decision to very carefully
listen to her and try to always understand each word she was saying,
so I could better understand her. I got to a 90+% comprehension with
her, but by the time she was four the rest of the world probably got
less than 50% of what she said.

When I tried working with her at 3.5, with shaping her mouth properly
to fix some of the pronunciation difficulties, she would just get mad
at me, and insist she was getting the sound right. She wasn't ready
for intervention at that point.

At four I could see how frustrated she was when people didn't get what
she was trying to tell them. And she wanted to talk to people
directly, not have me do it for her. I asked her if she wanted to go
to someone who could help her speak so that people could understand
her better. She was very eager to try this.

It took about three months of effort on both our parts (I dropped the
therapist after two months) for her to overcome her speech problems.
She did not have a physical problem, and I suppose it may be important
to start earlier if there is a physical problem (I don't know). For us
waiting till my daughter was 4yrs was really useful. She *wanted* the
help by that point, so she progressed very quickly.

BTW, it was only *after* we were getting the help for my DD that my
MIL casually mentioned how my DH had to get help to pronounce his "S"
sounds when he was about my DD's age.

Also, there is lots of help online. Sites for games and sharing
resources. Try the keyword "articulation". The link below was one of
mine and my daughter's favorite sites for speech games.

http://www.quia.com/pages/speechersclass.html

Good luck

Jen
space_and_freedom

Christy Putnam

Thank you for the book reference. I have requested a copy from our library.
In looking for that book I found this book and am wondering if you have read
it and what your thoughts are: The late talker: what to do if your child
isn't talking yet, by M.C. Agin, L.F. Geng, and M.J. Nicholl.





With Utmost Gratitude,
Christy Putnam
Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)

My Blog <http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-T5EDDQohfrQSzRSxKyT.uBV3VXEhgoA5> -
Our Life
Our Yahoo <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FYI-OKC/> Group: FYI-OKC
Watch this clip, then <http://www.whyarewepoisoningourchildren.com/> ask me
about alternatives!

One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
letting go of the perceived need to live by
the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Christy Putnam

Thanks for the link. I look forward to looking at it when I have a bit more
time (getting dinner ready now). I really appreciate your story and the
other stories as they are all helping me realize I need to relax and stop
worrying so much. Letting the 'dr. speak' get to me more than I normally
would is not serving me very well.



With Utmost Gratitude,
Christy Putnam
Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)

My Blog <http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-T5EDDQohfrQSzRSxKyT.uBV3VXEhgoA5> -
Our Life
Our Yahoo <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FYI-OKC/> Group: FYI-OKC
Watch this clip, then <http://www.whyarewepoisoningourchildren.com/> ask me
about alternatives!

One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
letting go of the perceived need to live by
the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob Collier

Ah, yes. The old "my daughter was walking at 6 months" ploy.

If my experience is anything to go by, most people who tell you when
your child 'should' be doing something really don't know.

I had a friend in the UK whose son didn't say a word until he was
three. Then he started talking in complete sentences.

My son was three when we came to Australia from London. Not long
after he started school a couple of years later, his teacher
recommended that I should take him to a speech therapist because he
wasn't pronouncing certain consonants 'correctly'. One apparent
problem was 'f' instead of 'th'. The reason for that was my son was
born a 'cockney' (think of the initial Eliza Doolittle in My Fair
Lady). So was I, and I grew up in that culture. I lost my cockney
accent long ago (although it does still occasionally re-emerge -
especially when I 'put it on'), but my then six year old son had
spent the first three and a half years of his life surrounded by
street language that dropped its aitches at the beginning of words,
and its gees at the end of words, and 'free' was what came
after "one, two ..." - and that had sunk in. Intelligibility wasn't
an issue. My son's speech was perfectly intelligible. So I took the
form about speech therapy from my son's teacher, promised I would
take the necessary action and chucked it in the bin when I got home.
Five years on, my son has a very interesting Australian-American
accent that's all his own and he communicates his ideas perfectly
clearly.

He also had special words of his own when he was a toddler, some of
which persisted until he was about five or six. 'Winoon' for
window; 'moonix' for music, are two I particularly remember. And,
would you adam and eve it, after my son eventually replaced these
words with the 'real words' of his own accord, my mother-in-law said
one day "Oh, he was so sweet when used to say moonix".

I agree with you. This is an area of child development where I
wouldn't put much faith in what self-appointed 'experts' think they
know.

Bob



--- In [email protected], Melody Flurry
<imagine1harmony@...> wrote:
>
> I don't know if this will help or not, but when my son was about 3,
he started to stutter. He hadn't started talking as early as some
children do, and I probably wouldn't have been bothered by that if
other people hadn't said things that made me feel that something was
wrong. (Things like "well you know, my daughter was talking at 6
months").
>
> Well, the last straw was my mother-in-law. She started telling
me about all the children she knew or ever had known, and about how
what I needed to do was have my son evaluated and start speech
therapy as soon as possible, because the longer I waited the worse it
would get and so on and so on. By the way, she said these things in
front of my son, which made me furious, even though I normally get
along with her quite well. Since she was a nurse, I paid attention
to what she said, but I felt in my gut that she was wrong. I did
some internet research, and discovered that what my son was doing was
normal, and he did not exhibit all of the signs of having a real
problem. Basically, his vocabulary was increasing faster than his
tongue was able to pronounce the words, and he was trying to speak
faster than he was able. He is 9 now, and has no problem
whatsoever.
>
> One thing I read that may help you is that if you sense a speech
issue, you should try to speak in a little slower pace, and speak
very distinctly to your child. (Think about the way Mr. Rogers
spoke). Not unusually slow, but not as fast as maybe you normally
speak. It sounds as though your son is trying to say things and he
knows what he is saying, it's just hard for you and others to
understand. Personally, I feel that this will work itself out over
time, but I know how frustrating it is right now (especially dealing
with others). As long as you know that he understands you, and you
are patient in trying to understand him, his ability to communicate
will improve. If however, you sense that a hearing problem is
involved, or after some time passes you don't sense any improvement,
by all means seek out professional opinions from more than one
source. Go with your gut feeling--you're the mom.
>
> Melody Flurry :-)
>
>
>
> Christy Putnam <personal_balance@...> wrote:
> My 2.4 year old communicates with me using mostly sign language
or other
> ways to let me know what he is verbally saying because most of the
time it
> is inaudible though he is definitely saying *something*. I have to
> translate to everyone, including my dh. Recently (near 2 year b-
day) we had
> his well child visit mainly to find out growth particulars since we
don't
> vax nor care too much about what the dr. says in general. One thing
she
> said that sticks in my head is "You may be able to tell what he is
saying
> now but others should be able to understand him by his 3rd
birthday." This
> sticks because his father had a horrible time with speech when he
was
> younger and our niece is almost 5 and there are still several
things she
> says that not even her parents can translate. I am a pretty big
proponent
> of early detections and interventions when warranted and possible
yet at
> this point I am torn between having an assessment done when he is 3
or just
> waiting things out knowing children do develop differently.
>
>
>
> I would like to hear what you all have decided to do and why.
>
>
>
> With Utmost Gratitude,
> Christy Putnam
> Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
> Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)
>
> My Blog -
> Our Life
> Our Yahoo Group: FYI-OKC
> Watch this clip, then ask me
> about alternatives!
>
> One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
> letting go of the perceived need to live by
> the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
> Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[email protected]

I just wanted to say thank you for these e-mails on this subject. My four year old struggles with saying his Ss and Im sure there are a few more sounds that he hasnt quite gotten the nack of tucked in there some where I just havent noticed them as much. : ) I have had some good hearted people share that we should have him go to a speech specialist. But at the time him seemed so young he had just turned three. I have been hoping that he would work through it on his own. But my husband has been starting to feel that we should do something more seriously now that he has turned four. So thanks for the ideas and thought that have been shared they have been really helpful even though I wasnt the one with the original question : )
Jane

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Bob Collier" <bobcollier@...>
Ah, yes. The old "my daughter was walking at 6 months" ploy.

If my experience is anything to go by, most people who tell you when
your child 'should' be doing something really don't know.

I had a friend in the UK whose son didn't say a word until he was
three. Then he started talking in complete sentences.

My son was three when we came to Australia from London. Not long
after he started school a couple of years later, his teacher
recommended that I should take him to a speech therapist because he
wasn't pronouncing certain consonants 'correctly'. One apparent
problem was 'f' instead of 'th'. The reason for that was my son was
born a 'cockney' (think of the initial Eliza Doolittle in My Fair
Lady). So was I, and I grew up in that culture. I lost my cockney
accent long ago (although it does still occasionally re-emerge -
especially when I 'put it on'), but my then six year old son had
spent the first three and a half years of his life surrounded by
street language that dropped its aitches at the beginning of words,
and its gees at the end of words, and 'free' was what came
after "one, two ..." - and that had sunk in. Intelligibility wasn't
an issue. My son's speech was perfectly intelligible. So I took the
form about speech therapy from my son's teacher, promised I would
take the necessary action and chucked it in the bin when I got home.
Five years on, my son has a very interesting Australian-American
accent that's all his own and he communicates his ideas perfectly
clearly.

He also had special words of his own when he was a toddler, some of
which persisted until he was about five or six. 'Winoon' for
window; 'moonix' for music, are two I particularly remember. And,
would you adam and eve it, after my son eventually replaced these
words with the 'real words' of his own accord, my mother-in-law said
one day "Oh, he was so sweet when used to say moonix".

I agree with you. This is an area of child development where I
wouldn't put much faith in what self-appointed 'experts' think they
know.

Bob

--- In [email protected], Melody Flurry
<imagine1harmony@...> wrote:
>
> I don't know if this will help or not, but when my son was about 3,
he started to stutter. He hadn't started talking as early as some
children do, and I probably wouldn't have been bothered by that if
other people hadn't said things that made me feel that something was
wrong. (Things like "well you know, my daughter was talking at 6
months").
>
> Well, the last straw was my mother-in-law. She started telling
me about all the children she knew or ever had known, and about how
what I needed to do was have my son evaluated and start speech
therapy as soon as possible, because the longer I waited the worse it
would get and so on and so on. By the way, she said these things in
front of my son, which made me furious, even though I normally get
along with her quite well. Since she was a nurse, I paid attention
to what she said, but I felt in my gut that she was wrong. I did
some internet research, and discovered that what my son was doing was
normal, and he did not exhibit all of the signs of having a real
problem. Basically, his vocabulary was increasing faster than his
tongue was able to pronounce the words, and he was trying to speak
faster than he was able. He is 9 now, and has no problem
whatsoever.
>
> One thing I read that may help you is that if you sense a speech
issue, you should try to speak in a little slower pace, and speak
very distinctly to your child. (Think about the way Mr. Rogers
spoke). Not unusually slow, but not as fast as maybe you normally
speak. It sounds as though your son is trying to say things and he
knows what he is saying, it's just hard for you and others to
understand. Personally, I feel that this will work itself out over
time, but I know how frustrating it is right now (especially dealing
with others). As long as you know that he understands you, and you
are patient in trying to understand him, his ability to communicate
will improve. If however, you sense that a hearing problem is
involved, or after some time passes you don't sense any improvement,
by all means seek out professional opinions from more than one
source. Go with your gut feeling--you're the mom.
>
> Melody Flurry :-)
>
>
>
> Christy Putnam <personal_balance@...> wrote:
> My 2.4 year old communicates with me using mostly sign language
or other
> ways to let me know what he is verbally saying because most of the
time it
> is inaudible though he is definitely saying *something*. I have to
> translate to everyone, including my dh. Recently (near 2 year b-
day) we had
> his well child visit mainly to find out growth particulars since we
don't
> vax nor care too much about what the dr. says in general. One thing
she
> said that sticks in my head is "You may be able to tell what he is
saying
> now but others should be able to understand him by his 3rd
birthday." This
> sticks because his father had a horrible time with speech when he
was
> younger and our niece is almost 5 and there are still several
things she
> says that not even her parents can translate. I am a pretty big
proponent
> of early detections and interventions when warranted and possible
yet at
> this point I am torn between having an assessment done when he is 3
or just
> waiting things out knowing children do develop differently.
>
>
>
> I would like to hear what you all have decided to do and why.
>
>
>
> With Utmost Gratitude,
> Christy Putnam
> Funschooling Mom to Seth (12) and Aden (2)
> Funloving Wife to Chet (7/4/04)
>
> My Blog -
> Our Life
> Our Yahoo Group: FYI-OKC
> Watch this clip, then ask me
> about alternatives!
>
> One of the hardest things about mindful parenting is
> letting go of the perceived need to live by
> the standards of other people. ~ adapted from Melissa Gray
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
> Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Robin Bentley

You're welcome. I have not read this other book and judging from the
customer reviews (especially the 1st one) on Amazon.com, I probably wouldn't
have. It sounds like it would, however, be a counterpoint to Thomas
Sowell's book. I see he has a follow-up book "The Einstein Syndrome: Bright
Children Who Talk Late."



http://tinyurl.com/2skfqy



Robin B.



Christy wrote:



Thank you for the book reference. I have requested a copy from our library.

In looking for that book I found this book and am wondering if you have read

it and what your thoughts are: The late talker: what to do if your child

isn't talking yet, by M.C. Agin, L.F. Geng, and M.J. Nicholl.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

Someone I've known since he was two is a marine now. He really
wanted to be a marine, but because he was unschooled, he had to take
fifteen hours of college credit. He did that; did well.

He couldn't speak very intelligibly until he was four or five.
He didn't read until he was fifteen, but went straight to novels.

If you met him and twenty other marines now and didn't know which one
he was, you would not be able to tell which one he was. The other
nineteen might've read at two, or five, or eight, and might have been
speaking well at a year old.

And so what?

Same kid had a twin sister. She was "ahead" of him. "Ahead" in some
ways, but not in all ways. He's nicer, he can kick her ass (and
needed to sometimes when they were growing up, because he was so much
nicer, and for many years he was smaller<bwg>).

http://sandradodd.com/r/carol
His mom wrote about his reading.

Sandra

Gold Standard

My now 13 yo was pretty unintelligible till he was 6. I interpreted most of
the time, and if he was somewhere else where I wasn't, I would occasionally
get a phone call asking to interpret. He seemed to roll with all of that. I
never saw distress from him about his speech. He was mostly around kind
people, so he wasn't getting teased. I made sure of that.

When he was 8, he still had a speech impediment, though he could be
understood most all of the time. He asked if there was someone who helps
speech. That's when we looked into speech therapy. He went for about 7
months and then said he didn't want to anymore (though he did feel some
guilt in not going anymore...he worried that the therapist would think he
was dissing her, lol).

Today he still has a bit of a speech quirk. "R"s have always been the big
hurdle. He learned some exercises and chooses to do them sometimes. Mostly
though, real life provides the most practice. He just played Captain Hook in
a local production of Peter Pan. He worked very hard on pronunciation of the
script. THAT was great speech therapy, with great incentive.

And, of course, he was the most amazing Captain Hook there ever was on a
stage :o) Played him like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Jacki