Any ideas on helping 21 mo. old start talking?

Diane - posted on 05/18/2011

Our son did Tomatis a few months after he turned six. At that time, his overall language was evaluated as that of a 4-yr 1-mo old (and based on the doctor's detailed evaluation, I think she pegged him perfectly, though I was disappointed that his level was so low. However, I didn't know what "normal" was since he is my only child) He did 90 hours of Tomatis, in 4 blocks over a 5-month period). A couple of months after he had completed his 90 hours, he was re-evaluated, and his overall speech had improved to that of a 6 1/2 year old, and he had just turned 7. Tomatis was amazing for him! (Though he was also GF/CF, being chelated, seeing his DAN Doctor, and taking a long list of vitamin and mineral supplements, plus in a 40-hr/week ABA program - all of which also helped contribute to his progress. But Tomatis made a huge impact on speech specifically.

Kristy - posted on 05/18/2011

Our son at 22 months old had only 10 words, including 3 signs. We began Speak by NourishLife. and saw words buzzing by the hundreds within a week! No dramatization. I documented each step and it's been great. They are acutually running a special for new families right now for about $65/2 mo supply. It's basically a fish oil, orange flavored pill that we put in his drink, he doesn't even notice it! And he's SPD, and extremely picky about his foods! We are now looking at and CAPD diagnosis as well and are planning on doing the Tomatis method asap! My 10 year old niece did Tomatis (one loop) and completely lost her diagnosis for Central Auditory Processing disorder :) Good Luck!

Lauren - posted on 10/15/2010

Music classes, or even private music sessions. Most doctors & speech therapists will agree that music helps in many areas of development including speech. I teach classes as well as private sessions for children with special needs & seeing them reach each little step gets me so pumped! Depending on where you live, you can find licensed music therapists who may work with this, too. I'm on the west side of Marietta, GA and have a studio for music, art, & theatre classes & lessons. If you're in my area give me a call 7/425-9660 (studio) and I'll see if I can help. I would think doing a music class together would be the first step to give it a shot with other kids who might model what you want him to do. I would ask for that just to help assess him. However, I am willing to try private sessions for any age with any type of challenge. This summer a non-verbal autistic 8 year old told me "bye", though not perfectly said, but it was awesome! A girl with global developmental delay came to me not wanting to be touched & banging on all the piano keys. Now she gives me hugs, knows chords/scales/short songs on the piano, & has sung a song with an audience on stage. Music is a miracle, yet if it doesn't pull them past their challenge they're still happy while they're trying. God bless you and I pray you & others who are posting are able to get help. LaLa

Madeline - posted on 10/15/2010

For the head banging it would sound like a sensory diet and an OT [occupational therapist] would be able to give you a lot of pointers and strategies. For the talking [from my experience only, not to criticize you ] I learned that my sons' speech delays were in part because instead of encouraging speech [when they were screaming for something ] I would give 'it' / what they wanted to them instead of 'holding out' for the word 'juice' or 'milk' or whatever. I'd recommend PECs - picture exchange cards to help both of you, but try not to be discouraged as it does take time and patience.

Michelle - posted on 10/12/2010

I am wondering about the GF/CF diet coukd someone help explain this to me,... having alot of trouble w my 4 yr old autistic daughter... THX :)

Tonya - posted on 10/11/2010

Sign language was a blessing for two of my sons-one on the spectrum & one not. Oce they could express themselves in some form, thier frustration levels grew smaller. Hope it helps!

Michelle - posted on 10/10/2010

thanks, i hope it was helpful to everyone ...

Annie - posted on 10/08/2010

Try taking your son off of milk, switch to almond or rice milk! It really helped my son who was diagnosed w/ Autism on Sept 24th. I took him off milk on July 29th after reading an article that said children w/ a cerebral allergy to casein in cow's milk reacts like LSD when they drink it. Jamey my 2 1/2 yr old stopped banging head, flapping arms, spinning wheels on toys, walking on tip toes and he started saying new words and "lost" words. It's amazing how doing something so simple helped my Jamey!!!!! let me know if u try it, I'm curious i it helps your son. Good luck! Annie

Terri - posted on 10/08/2010

I liked baby bumblebee. I got my son back from the fog he was in on that.. I got a Kiss after over a year of waiting for one again!!! HE shut down after shots.. his DTAP messed him up.. and took all words away.....
just hun.. work work work.. repeat things, and just dont give up..
Try signing times.. IT will help with frustrations.. and HONESTLY PECS are amazing... even a little one can do that.. what do you want? Have a pic of a cup or bottle .. or a cookie..... they pull what they want... Teach i teach time you do something change a diaper show Clean diaper dirty diaper.. we want Clean and show that one...
IT will happen.. but if you do signs BE sure to do sign and SAY IT.. so they dont rely on sign only..
Like they do a sign for more.. say oh ***** What chlds name is.. YOu want more!!! good asking!!!!
Say that each time IT what they used on my son in therapy to get words back... Boy I miss them!!!

Judi - posted on 10/08/2010

we used Hanan, a speech therapist, the count to 10 rule, as in "oh you want the..[count to 10 in your head] train" and the stop and give the thing that was said immediately (ice block - make your own with fruit it's always at 7am that they want one of these).

Head banging - alot of padding in their room and deep preasure on their forehead

Shelly - posted on 10/08/2010

Try looking up ABA therapist in your area. Applied Behavior Analysis is wonderful. My now 3 year old has just started saying a few words in July 2010. I owe most of it to ABA. Also supplements. Your child could be banging his head because his tummy hurts. Go to generationrescue.com and check out the book Facing Autism, great book for parents of Autistic children.

Angie - posted on 10/07/2010

create a velcro picture chart and start some sign language classes. those are the things i did with my son and it worked out great . and at 24months we started speech therapy.

Debbie - posted on 10/07/2010

Signing is fantastic, for both non-verbal AND verbal children. I've taught it to both my children, using Tiny Talk (which is very similar to Makaton). It's fantastic being able to commicate with them. I started it with my first child (ASD & ADHD) when he was about 6 months old. He's 3 now and we still "talk" with our hands, even though he is verbal - we just use the words at the same tiime. Or, if we are out, I can let him know if he's doing something he shouldn't be with a simple hand movement, and he doesn't get embarrassed (he's very sensitive to those sorts of things). I started it with my second child on the day he was born, and now we can "talk", even though he doesn't use words yet.

We also used to have major tantrums and serious head banging, and that has now virtually stopped after putting him on a GF/CF diet as suggested earlier in the conversation. The change in his behaviour is amazing - to the extent that he's like a completely different child. He used to be violent, agressive, oppositional, moody, hyperative, didn't sleep, didn't eat much except for "cheesy pasta", hot chips and milk. Now he's happy, co-operative (as much as a 3 yr old can be), kind and gentle, he has a wide variety of foods he eats, can sit still and concentrate for periods of about 10 minutes (used to be 10 seconds), and his baby brother now looks at him with love in his eyes instead of fear. The best thing we ever did was to remove this "drug" from his system.

We are now in the process of refining his diet even further by removing all the nasty additives in food (as recommended in the book "Fed Up" by Sue Dengate). In this way, I am hoping that we can help him to have a more "normal" life so that he can attend mainstream school and have normal friendships. We are certainly on our way there.

Good luck. It's a hard road, but some journeys are worth fighting for.

Casey - posted on 10/07/2010

We have had great results from GF/CF diet , PECS , and Leap Frogs Letter Factory . PECS was actually what allowed her to transition from non-verbal to fully talking. We still use a schedule board to help her with transitioning .

Samantha - posted on 10/07/2010

I use a combination of pictures of familiar items and a little bit of sign language to help my now 3 year old. His words come out like baby talk, but if we listen carefully we can hear some of his words behind everything. When he was younger he would head bang. We asked our team and they said to find out why he was head banging, what caused him to start head banging and when he would head bang. After we found all that out they said then to try to replace the behavior with something else. My son will also bring either myself or my husband into the kitchen if he wants something and he'll show us either the fridge or pull on the pantry door. Try pictures, sign language, and asking them to show you want they want.

Michelle - posted on 10/06/2010

Yea I agree... IDK what bumbleebee is, now the headstart and the special ed porogram are totally diff. You have to ask about it, cuz headstart is not for kids like we have. The special ed prog. keeps them as long as they need it and ultimately decide if they can go on to kindergarten.. I think u will have it if ur district has headstart , Plus this is free cus the govern. pays for it if they r disabled.

Melissa - posted on 10/06/2010

My son's therapist tried sign with him, but it actually made him talk LESS. I nixed it and we went another direction. We started with a motivator (bubbles) and modeled how to say it over and over until he started making sounds, then syllables, then words. As far as the bumblebee program goes, I looked into it and thought it looked great, but by that time, my son was a little past the level they offered. I actually used Your Baby Can Read because my son was starting to read but not talking much (how backward is that?). Anyway, it really helped him start talking more, at least to ask for things he wanted. Pay attention to the games your therapist is playing with him and do some variant of them every single day. It may not be enough to just talk to him. You might have to find ways to motivate him to want to talk.



Try to anticipate his needs less so he has a reason to communicate. It will not be easy and he might have more tantrums for now, but in the long run, it is definitely worth it if he learns to talk! When my son was about 6 months older than yours, he was only making 3 word-type sounds. Now, at 4 1/2 his receptive skills are above age level and his expressive are almost at age level. He is finally asking questions, which is a difficult milestone!

Michelle - posted on 10/06/2010

My daughter is Autistic as well. She was severe when she was that age. She neither talked at that age nor my other son. She is 4 now and he is 8. What worked for me was buying the lil abc (see n say) toys and then just talking with them and to them ALL the time. It takes alot of patience and time but well worth it in the end. We also had her enroilled into the Special Ed program, through Edgewood School, (so you might check with ur local elementry school.) They did a 3mth admittance program, working with her and seeing where she was at with everything and she now attends full time and has a therapist for everything including vision. This was a HUGE help. Any kind of social interaction will be a huge help for them especially if you can put them in a program like this (also if it is thru the school headstart you can get it FREE) So check it out, and let me know, in a year you wont believe how far she has came!! .. Hope this helps you out. :)

Diane - posted on 10/06/2010

Our son was a head-banger too. He was non-verbal at age 3, and tantrummed on average of 4-6 hours per day in combined episodes. For him, his diet was a huge contributor to his autistic behaviors. We heard from other families that kids who self-limited their diet to wheat and dairy products may greatly benefit from the GF/CF diet (gluten-free, Casein/dairy-free) diet as they self limit to the foods that they crave (or their drug, like an addict - their food becomes their drug, and makes them feel high, like an opioid effect). Our son's diet had become very self-limited, down to Saltine or Ritz crackers, graham crackers, dinner rolls, McDonald's chicken nuggets, mozzarella string cheese, vanilla icecream, and about 1/2 gallon of milk per day. Everything he ate had either gluten or dairy. We slowly weaned him off his favorite foods by finding gluten-free and dairy-free replacements. Took about 8 weeks to replace everything, and once he was completely GF/CF, we started to see slow but continual improvement (tantrumming greatly reduced over the following weeks, diarrhea reduced, started sleeping through the night, and started his pre-verbal gibberish. He started the diet 3 months before his 3rd birthday. By his 4th bday, he had 300 words. By 5, he was highly verbal (though still delayed compared to typical peers. However, tantrumming greatly dissipated as he could communicate his basic needs and desires. About six weeks into the diet (six weeks where he had not eaten a crumb of no-no foods), he came home head-banging for hours, and all of the behaviors that had slowly dissipated or had disappeared completely came back 10 times worse than before. I called his daycare and asked what he had eaten and she insisted no milk nor bread was given - they only gave him macaroni and cheese (duh - a double whammy). This diet infraction spoke volumes to us, and was proof that the diet was needed. He went back to his normal, happy self a few days later, and infractions have been very few and rare ever since. Hasn't headbangged since. I do believe he had such a migraine headache, he was trying to get rid of it, but he was non-verbal and could not tell us.

Diet helped set the stage for learning. Helped calm him down, be able to sit and attend in his therapies and eventually classroom, and actually learn. He is also under the care of a DAN doctor (Defeat Autism Now), who orders periodic testing of poop, urine and blood to identify what's going on internally (confirm food allergies, yeast infestation, bacterial overgrowth, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, etc., and guide the doctor to which treatments are needed to address the issues).

Fast forward to now, he is in the 6th grade, still GF/CF, a strong student academically, very healthy, highly verbal, and most people would not be able to pick out the kid in his classrooms with an IEP.

BTW, besides the diet , other things that have helped his speech noticeably over the years were: DMG, Vitamin B-12 injections, 90 hours of Tomatis Listening therapy, and continued care by his DAN doctor identifying and addressing internal issues.

Zenzele - posted on 10/05/2010

I second using sign. Definitely look into Signing Time. They kept my daughter's attention and my son who is typical also signs using the DVD's... http://www.signingtime.com/shop/age-rang...

Shannon - posted on 10/05/2010

I do not know head banging, but somethings that helped with speech...Leap Frog DVD,The Letter factory,word factory,and on PBS Word World(love it),helps with phonics and key word here SEEING how words work,my son went from 5 words to 10 to 50 in months not years he is 3 now(diagnosed at 18mo.) his speech is almost at normal range he just needs to slow down..but they were a huge reenforcement with early intervention,the gagets didn't help except for bubbles learning to blow bubbles also helps to form words with movement of the mouth and muscle stengthing)Good luck hope any of this helps

Marianne - posted on 10/05/2010

Id reccomend Makaton sign, we use AusLan, as well as PECS. Both my autistic boys hve learnt this way and even though the eldest is now verbal at age 13 he still remembers his signs and can communicate with his brother

Monica - posted on 10/05/2010

Carmen, just a suggestion...when my son was younger I was unable to get speech therapy for him because my insurance would not pay for it. I could not afford it on my own, so I went to the local college and had the students work with him. It was probably the best thing I ever did and his speech took off. They, of course, were students learning to be STs, but they were unbelievable. They used all kinds of play therapies and such and he loved every minute of it. My daughter went also and did wonderfully. Hope this helps!

Monica

Charlene C. - posted on 10/05/2010

Hi Carmen: Have you considered using sign language. There's a lot of research that show it works as it acts like a bridge to communicating. It's not to replace speech but only to help because it's an extension of a visual aid and it allows communication which reduces frustration.

I am a Certified American Sign Language Instrcutor and have taught non verbal children with and without barriers and have had much success. Depending on the diagnosis of course as to how much they will communicate through sign but but it's certainly worth perusing especially while waiting for diagnosis.

Good luck........

Rachael - posted on 10/04/2010

I have a Sev. Autistic boy who is now 7. He wasn't and still doesn't speak much. We tried it all - even went to Sydney to try the Tomatis Program which didn't do anything, but the experince of living in such a big place and trips on the train and to the beach, just us, was all pretty great as far as experiences go for him and for me! I have the BumblebeeDVD's and they are as new as the day I purchsed them - no interest shown at all. The one thing that I can say is that they will speak in their own time and not in any time frame we would like to see it happen in..... He was about 3 and was watching one of his "favorite" cartoons - Max and Ruby (the rabbits) and Ruby was counting for hide and seek and as she counted, (after watching it about 50,000,000 times) he joined in!!! You can imagine what happened when, as I washed up heard this sound coming from the playroom as he joined Ruby in her count!!! Then I started doing the counting with his Thomas Trains that are magnet joined and as they "clicked" together i would say 1 and he repeated it... He still can count, one of his favorite things - numbers, and says a few words, but it is a long process and we have a Speech Therapist and have done since he was 11 months, so who knows... but I am making sure he has every opportunity. I talk to him as I talk to anyone else and even if I get a sound back I praise him i.e. When he requests the Computer I say "Oh you want the PC (PC easier to say than computer...) and he now says PC!! Or I make him say "ta" (thankyou) when I give him some apple etc. Little short sounds.... If you think its going to be long term (Autism) get him going on PEC's or Signing as soon as you can.... We use PEC's and he is really great at it. there is nothing he cannot communicate and this stops a lot of the frustration for all of us.
Oh the headbanging!!! I'm afraid my boy went through this quite badly from around 20 months to about 5 and was shocking to witness. I was just there to stop him from hurting himself. Putting my hand between his head and whatever it was he was trying to "get at" Steel, cement, timber anything hard was good. Talk him through it and he will move more quickly through the "moment" calm soft words, kisses etc. be careful you don't get a broken nose as you do this..... He likes those soft ice packs to put his chin against too... the cold sensation brings him back down and the chin hitting or headbanging would stop if I could grab quickly on my way to him. We rarely have headbanging these days, but they still do happen when he gets overloaded. It's his way of coping. You just have to work through it with them I'm afraid. My boy is on medication but we still see headbanging and think we always will.... It has backed of for the most part as he has grown...
Get onto a "good" Speech Pathologist they are worth their weight in gold and will get things moving with either PEC's or Signing or a little of both and getting those sounds out. Signing can be great when out in the park i.e. Finished or more, but PEC's is great for general use by all those he encounters in his day who may not know signing or little kids his own age who all know what a picture of a glass or cordial would mean if given it! It won't delay speech if indeed it does come, but will enable communication which is what you are looking for!!! Good luck.. The journey is beginning!!

Paulette - posted on 10/04/2010

I found teaching my first son to sign was really helpful because he didn't start speaking till he was well over 2 and he just seemed to love it probably because he could then tell us things and we could understand him.