Does this describe your child? 2.5-3.5yrs old probably male, probably firstborn delayed language; doesn’t put words together yet doesn’t use Yes/No correctly– can cry/temper tantrum easily doesn’t call for help doesn’t use Mommy/Daddy/own name well very detail-oriented walks on tiptoes walks in circles, sometimes jabbering to self or no-one spins car wheels, pokes blocks off, [...]
After hundreds of comments from moms dealing with their speech-delayed boys who walk on tiptoes or have other such idiosyncrasies, it occurred to me to write another post on the boy/autism thing. This time, with a focus on the developmental timetable. I have another post on how boys develop differently than girls, but to recap [...]
What is play therapy, and how do I do it? If your child is on THE SPECTRUM or delayed in other ways, you’ve probably heard of “play therapy” by now. Play therapy became popular in the 80s and 90s as professionals found out that getting down on the carpet with their autistic-type 2yr olds, and [...]
http://www.childrenshospital.org/dream/summer09/arresting_autism.html http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/#30009205 Does anyone else think this kind of thing is a tragedy? These kind of clips embody what’s wrong in the world about autism right now. Now just FYI, my children and I actually took part in this exact study mentioned here in the videos (i.e. the Infant Sibling Project in Boston.) So I [...]
Recently I had a relative drill me on what kinds of educational toys we give our kids. She has been trying to get her four year old to play independently and to read. So I went through a lot of what we had, and I thought I’d post some lists out here just for fun. [...]
If you didn’t catch the sarcasm in this title, this post is for you! I don’t mean this to be rude—it’s just that with the advent of Baby Reading videos and the cutthroat path of getting your kid accepted to kindergarten, parents start worrying that Johnny and Jane aren’t reading WAY too early these days. [...]
With all the hubbub out there about little kids reading, it’s hard to make sense of how/when you should start. Should you work hard to get them reading in preschool, or should you wait until they are ready? Should you use a workbook, a DVD series, or just keep sounding out their favorite story? All [...]
I’ve written elsewhere about my struggle to identify my oldest son’s auditory processing disorder when he was a toddler. Now that he’s been through five semesters of preschool, he has made much progress. He has, in fact, progressed so much that most people can’t tell there is anything wrong! We put him in a mainstream [...]
It is not uncommon for a child to have trouble with gender words–he, she, his, her, etc.–for quite some time. My three and a half year old is almost getting it, but not my two year old. And my almost-five year old has it, I think completely, and he was linguistically challenged. So I would [...]
Stuttering (or stammering) is common in toddlers/preschoolers. It can mean a variety of things: Thinking is going faster than talking. The child knows what they want to say but are having a hard time getting it out of the mouth. (motor issue) Thinking is slower than talking. The child doesn’t know what to say but [...]
I have lots of posts of language, but I just wanted to write a short one here to share the main tip I have stumbled upon: PUT WORDS IN YOUR CHILD’S MOUTH. Not if they talk well, of course, but to help those who are language-delayed. Every day that I talk to my baby (9 [...]
I entitled this “little boy” because sociologically, moms worry more about their boys’ language development than their girls. It is 100% true that girls generally learn language faster than boys. Girls biologically mature faster than boys too, so it is normal for the average three year old girl’s vocabulary to be on par with a [...]
The concept of “circles of communication” is a really good one, articulated by Stanley Greenspan in The Child with Special Needs and The Challenging Child. For children with high functioning autism, autism spectrum disorders, sensory or auditory processing problems, or other special needs that have self-centered behavior, working on circles of communication can help them [...]
Echolalia means repeating back (echo-) things that are said (-lalia). In a toddler, this means that you would say something to them, and they’d repeat it back to you. It doesn’t mean they would necessarily keep repeating themselves, although this is very common too. It means, for example, that you ask, “What do you want?” [...]
Teaching prepositions to language-delayed kids is very important. Whereas most children unconsciously pick these words (up, down, over, under), language-delayed kids often struggle to get them right. Sometimes they can’t figure out the concepts in their head (cognition), sometimes they can’t figure them out because of the nuances of English language (receptive language), and sometimes [...]
How many people haven’t looked at their child, who is either head-banging, eating a screw, or pushing a button on a musical toy for the ten thousandth time in one minute, and wondered, “Is there something wrong with my child?! Why does he DO that?” But feeling that there is something wrong in your gut [...]
My oldest son has an auditory processing disorder (sometimes known as CAPD), and for the longest time, it evaded me. There are many symptoms of auditory processing problems, but it was difficult to diagnose him because they were either too vague or overlapped with other possible diagnoses (e.g. high functioning autism). One of the most [...]
The normal auditory processing disorder screening questions are a little vague. Thus, I have included a list of my sons’ symptoms just to be more specific. Inability to answer yes/no questions (i.e. repeats the question back to you) Consistently taking the questioner’s role (i.e. say’s “how you doing?” when he sees you but doesn’t answer [...]
I have several other posts that address receptive language problems. Here’s a short list of red flags I saw: inability to manipulate words he’d heard before in new ways. For example, he knew the words “I want” and “milk” or “ball”, but he couldn’t formulate, “I want the ball” or even “I want” “want ball” [...]
