Rank: Newbie
Joined: 6/16/2012(UTC)
Posts: 1
Location: Wisconsin
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Hi,
My son is 26 months old. When he he was 18 months he would say 5-6 words clearly and was putting 2 words together. Since then I feel that his speech has regressed. He now rarely articulates his words. He mostly talks with his mouth shut and mumbles words. I can figure out what he's trying to say, but most of the time I'm guessing. We had his hearing checked and brought this speech problem up with our pediatrician who did not seem concerned. My husband and I are concerned so we had our local birth to 3 program come to our home and evaluate our son for speech or any other developmental delay when he was 24 months. They were not concerned and thought he did not require speech therapy at that time. They gave us exercises to do with him one being holding up items to our mouths when we talk but this has not seemed to make any changes. I'm just wondering if we should be more aggressive in regards to speech therapy or just wait and watch as all the other experts have told us. Otherwise he is developing well. He recognizes all colors, numbers, and can even point out full words when I ask him to show me which words is mouth vs book, etc. He parallel plays, jumps, kicks a ball, is able to walk up and down stairs, and is very affectionate with us. We do speak to him in 2 languages and I wonder if this is contributing to his odd speech behavior. Have you ever heard of a child who speaks with his mouth closed? If someone can give me any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 1/21/2008(UTC)
Posts: 860
Location: Colorado
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Hello!
Welcome to this great forum. From what you have written, my thoughts are that your son may have speech production difficulty that has not been diagnosed properly yet. Your son may have been able to produce words better when he had a small vocabulary and was just putting 2 words together. Now that he is stringing more words together, he may be showing that he can't "coarticulate" rapidly and maintain accuracy of production. His attempt to compensate for his motor planning difficulties may be to keep his jaw in a fairly closed position. He is not doing this "on purpose"--it is just the way it is for him right now, and it may be a strong signal that he needs some help.
It could be that the Birth-to-Three provider may just have been attending to his language usage--his ability to understand what is said to him and to express his ideas in phrases and sentences. Was she a speech-language pathologist (SLP)? If not, she may not have much experience with speech production (articulation) difficulties.
My recommendation would be for you to find an SLP who has experience with children who have significant articulation difficulties and schedule an evaluation for your son. If this is diagnosed, then this is a good time to start speech therapy that works on helping him produce sounds accurately and blend them into syllables and words and then into connected speech (phrases and sentences). Do you live close to a children's hospital, a university speech & hearing clinic, or to a community clinic that has SLPs?
I also suggest you take a look at the web site called apraxia-kids.org to see if the information that is there for parents fits what you see happening for your son. (I am not affiliated with that site in any way. I recommend it often to parents.)
I hope you will write again sometime!
Mary Lou
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 4/23/2004(UTC)
Posts: 226
Location: Wisconsin
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Hi I'm not sure where you are in Wisconsin but I am in the Milwaukee area. The SLPs at Children's Hospital are wonderful and so are those at the speech and hearing clinic at Marquette University. Additionally, we have had success with both locations being willing to just talk with us via the phone...and often they know of a good SLP in your area. If you need phone numbers, please let me know and I can pass them on to you.
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