If your dc had speech, fine and gross motor delays in early childhood...

[hsing1]

could you tell me how they're doing now?

The reason I ask is my ds is 8. As a toddler/preschooler he had severe speech delays, and moderate to severe fine and gross motor delays. He received speech therapy, physical therapy through the Early Intervention programs. At 5 he graduated from the program. He still was having challenges but not severely enough for the state to help. We were basically told he just needs to practice and that he would probably be late riding a bike.

Well, he's now in 3rd grade and having challenges. I'm not sure if they are connected to his early challenges or what. So I thought maybe if any of you had dc in this situation you might share how they're doing.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks.

[chiguirre]

My moderately autistic ds is still delayed in speech, fine and gross motor skills. My high functioning ds still has expressive delays, but his receptive speech was "average" on his last 3 year testing. He is very uncoordinated but he did learn to ride a bike right after his 9th bday. He learned in one day, so we probably should have tried earlier. His fine motor skills are still delayed. He can do worksheets, but copywork of more than about 10 words overwhelms him. I think he'll improve gradually, but be more comfortable typing than writing. We just keep chugging along, even though I'm not sure what our destination is.

[AngieW in Texas]

My middle dd had speech/language delays, fine/gross motor delays, and sensory integration issues. At 4yo, her receptive and expressive speech was at a 2yo level. At 5yo, her fine motor skills were at a 6mo-1yo level and her gross motor skills were at a 2yo-3yo level.

The speech delay was caused by an auditory processing issue and weak facial muscles. I corrected the auditory processing issue with Reading Reflex (had the side benefit of teaching her how to read as well). She still had articulation issues, but her receptive and expressive speech improved to low end of normal for her age after just 6 months of Reading Reflex. When she is stressed, she starts having problems with auditory processing again, but there are no signs of it unless she's stressed. The OT fixed the rest of her articulation issues by teaching her to blow bubbles and having her always drink through a straw.

We did occupational therapy when she was 5yo. Her gross motor skills improved to normal for her age very quickly (4 months) and are very good now. She's been in gymnastics/tumbling for 4 years now. She is still in Beginner Tumbling, but she can do front flips, front handsprings, and back handsprings without spotting on the trampoline now. She can't do any of them without spotting on the floor. You can't move up to the next level in tumbling until you can do all of these skills on the floor without spotting.

Her fine motor skills improved to low end of normal with OT, but she still has fine motor issues. She wasn't able to put socks on by herself in less than 15 minutes until she was 11yo. She still can't tie a bow. She can work snaps if they are loose, but has a lot of difficulty with buttons, zippers, and ziplock bags. I don't think her fine motor skills will ever improve beyond where they are right now. Her writing is legible, but it doesn't look like a 14yo's writing.

She has Asperger's, so she also has the challenges that go along with it. She can actually tell when people are looking at her like she has 3 heads, but she has a lot of difficulty figuring out why they are looking at her like that. She has only told the truth. She has gotten better about which truths she actually says out loud.

Her facial expressions are often off. She usually looks worried or angry, so it's hard to tell what she's actually feeling. Her voice usually sounds snarky. She's very abrupt on the phone. She has a hard time talking to people when she can't actually see them. She's pretty good about eye contact. Anybody who knows about Asperger's will generally identify her as an Aspie within a few minutes of starting to talk with her.

She is rule-bound, so that makes a lot of things easier, but she has a very hard time dealing with people who don't follow rules (like some of the girls in her tumbling class).

Little kids like her a lot. She often has 4-6yo groupies following her around at parkday. I think they like the way that she talks to them. She doesn't know how to talk down to little kids, so she doesn't. They seem to appreciate that. Her friends are younger than she is and she doesn't see them very often. She gets along much better with adults than with kids, but some adults love to talk with her and others obviously just want her to go away. She has gotten better at identifying which adults want her to leave them alone.

She is academically advanced. I am looking forward to when she's able to take cc classes. That's just 1.5 years away now. I think she'll like the classes.

[merry gardens]

could you tell me how they're doing now?

The reason I ask is my ds is 8. As a toddler/preschooler he had severe speech delays, and moderate to severe fine and gross motor delays. He received speech therapy, physical therapy through the Early Intervention programs. At 5 he graduated from the program. He still was having challenges but not severely enough for the state to help. We were basically told he just needs to practice and that he would probably be late riding a bike.

Well, he's now in 3rd grade and having challenges. I'm not sure if they are connected to his early challenges or what. So I thought maybe if any of you had dc in this situation you might share how they're doing.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks.Thanks. I'm happy to share if your willing to read. I hope our story might help someone else.

My son had speech problems that were never severe enough to qualify for speech therapy. I knew something wasn't right way back then. We did things at home recommended by a speech therapist from the school district when he was 5. I also did Speechercise with him.

At age 6 1/2 his reading struggles seemed significant enough that I began looking at information about dyslexia and I looked at his speech problems again since he still was very difficult to understand. I took him to a private speech therapist, who again said he didn't need speech therapy, but she noted he had some problem with phonemic awareness or processing. She didn't seem overly concerned about that--looking back I don't think she knew fully what she had discovered and neither did I. We did the Listening Program at her recommendation. We worked with phonograms and phonics extensively, but he still couldn't put them together into reading well. I stopped pushing him to read because I could see he was mostly guessing words--and didn't want to encourage that habit. He made some progress, but not much.

At age eight his reading struggles continued and I finally broke down and bought an expensive reading program for dyslexia, (Barton). Before beginning the program I gave him the pre-test. He failed the section on phonemic awareness. At the recommendation of Barton, we did part of the LiPS program. Since I couldn't afford the private LiPS tutoring, I learned the program and administered it myself. Finally! His speech problems made sense!

My son could not distinguish the difference between some sounds! That accounted for his being able to say the sounds adequately enough that he didn't qualify for thereapy while still misprouncing many words. Vowels were particularly difficult for him--and every word has at least one vowel. Within a short time after beginning LiPS my son's speech became easier to understand. LiPs taught him to distinguish the difference in similar sounds based on what his mouth/lips/tongue etc. do to create the sounds. He can figure out the difference now. He still has problems with reading--but he now has enough phonemic awareness to make progress that he previously wasn't making.

BTW from what I've learned about dyslexia, third grade is often the year that reading problems such as dyslexia show up. The amount of reading required often exceeds a child's ability to memorize words and 3rd grade texts offer fewer pictures and visual clues for guessing. Some children can still manage to read well enough (often by memorizing entire words), but spelling and writing may push their skills to the limits. Reading and spelling problems in a child whose has been taught phonics may relate to an individuals inability to hear the individual sounds within words.

I hope this helps.

[Laura Corin]

Calvin had motor skills delays and had three years of occupational therapy (aged 4 to 7). He is now a competent writer and doing well in Taekwondo, but his handwriting is still slow and he's not very willing to take on physical challenges.

Hobbes had delayed speech, articulation difficulties and a stutter. We are still working on the last articulation problem (s/th) and coping mechanisms for the stutter. I can't stop him talking though.

Laura

[Rebecca VA]

My 12-year-old had a severe speech delay. She barely talked until she was four, and was well into five before she would talk in sentences. I didn't worry much about it, and it resolved itself. She had a stuttering problem for a long time. I think the stuttering was happening because she is a somewhat slow processor (she scored more poorly on processing speed on her WISC-IV than any other category) and speech is something that has to be processed and responded to very rapidly.

She has improved steadily over the years and really keeps up very nicely with her peers now.

She was also motor-delayed. She learned to ride a bike when she was seven. We delayed even trying to teach her for a long time, and when we finally got around to it she was ready. There was no frustration involved for her, because we didn't try to force it on her too soon. She has been taking ballet since she was four. I have used ballet and swimming as physical therapy substitutes for her through the years. She's very highly motivated in ballet and hopes to join her ballet school's student company when she's in high school.

[hsing1]

Thank you all for your replies. It really helps to read about how your dc are doing.

Thanks so much!!!