I'm new here to this site, but excited to see that something like this exists! Today I'm writing because my 2-year-old son's doctors and speech therapists are completely stumped by my son's speech delay. I was wondering if anybody else had seen a speech delay like my sons?

As I mentioned before, my son is 2-years-old and normal in all the physical aspects of his development, but he has absolutely NO speech. No babbling of any sort (ie. "baba" or "mama"). He'll occasionally make some strange guttural noises, but nothing more meaningful than that. His receptive verbal language skills are slightly better, but still profoundly delayed. At first we thought that he may have had some kind of hearing loss, but we've had him professionally tested and it appears that his hearing abilities are normal.

The one ray of hope that we have is sign language. He was slow at first to pick up on the vocabulary, but now he's learning approximately 1-2 new signs every week. He now has a total of approximately 35 signs in his vocabulary, which I think is somewhat impressive since we only started seriously signing with him about 6 months ago.

So, has anybody seen a case such as my sons? He appears to be completely mute, but with no hearing loss to cause it. Is that even possible?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

-HaleyGH

Mary Lou,

Thanks for your reply! I'll try to answer all your questions in the order presented to me.

1. My son will be two years old April 29th. So I believe that makes him approximately 22 1/2 months old!

2. My son loves to laugh, and will make screeching noises when we he gets really excited (i.e. when we tickle him). He does not produce any sounds that could be recognized as "English" sounds. Sounds like "Ahhhh" "Dahhh" "Bahh" are not in his vocab. Pretty much the only sounds that he makes are high pitched squeaks and guttural noises.

3. That being said, the one sound he will make is "Mmmmmm." He makes it whenever he sees anybody eating. However, if you model the sound for him and encourage him to repeat, he will not imitate you. My son receives speech therapy twice a week, plus I try and work with him a lot at home, so he is quite accustomed to people encouraging him to make meaningful sounds. My speech therapists say they have never seen a child so reluctant to make sounds. He won't even make environmental sounds like "vroom vroom" or animal noises. The ST's initially thought he could have some kind of oral-motor issue, but after testing he appears to have very good control.

4. He will initiate signs with me, and everybody else (even if they don't know sign!). For instance, if he wants to watch a movie, walks up to the TV, points, and signs "movie." The other day we were grocery shopping and we saw a very upset baby and my son spontaneously signed "cry." We're working on trying to get him to use 2 signs together (like, "want ball") and are having some success with that. But he also imitates signs really well, too. He will often at least attempted to make the sign even if he's not sure how. This is a very stark contrast with speech!

5. My son isn't very interactive with me. He's extremely independent. That being said, he makes wonderful eye contact with me. He's a pretty laid back baby- nothing really seems to bother him. His speech therapists think that because he doesn't really understand speech, he's kind of retreated into his own little world, but both of them are in agreement that he's not autistic. For example, my son likes it when the speech therapists come over, and will play a little bit with them, but then he'll walk away and do his own thing for 20 minutes.

6. I don't think my doctor has done any examination of that kind.

7. My son likes other children, but does not really attempt to play with them. I think he's still too young for that kind of interaction.

8. As far as the hearing test is concerned, I don't know. I know he can hear, but it's almost like what he's hearing is garbled. It's like he's a hearing child who's also deaf! I know that makes no sense, but it's the best way I can put it. An example would be he can be completely turned away from you and you can ask him if he wants a cookie. He'll immediately turn around and sign cookie. Other times he seems like he totally can't hear you at all.

9. When he was last evaluated (which was at 18 months), his expressive verbal speech was similar to that of a 3-month-old, and his receptive verbal speech was similar to that of an 8-month-old. He's made almost no progress at all in expressive verbal speech, and extremely limited progress in receptive. He's made significant gains in signed language, however.

Thank you Mary Lou!

-Haley

Hi again, HaleyGH,

As I listened to a researcher present new information to my staff today, I was thinking about your son and one of your comments, that you know he can hear but that it seems variable. This researcher showed us the results of years of collecting data on children. Some children can hear and respond to the tones of regular audiometric testing but they do not hear speech sounds and syllables as well (I am drastically simplifying the information by this statement). This other type of testing may be something for you to look into. I can get some more information if you would like. Do you want to travel to Denver? You could be tested at no charge as part of the research project and receive the results. (I am not affiliated with this research project--I simply learned about it today.)

I still think it is wise to get the ENT (laryngeal) exam and the complete developmental exam. But if signs point toward hearing, addressing it sooner rather than later is very important. Birth to age 2 is the most sensitive period for growth of the auditory cortex, and intervention, when needed, should be provided ASAP. Again, I am simplifying here.

I believe there is a way for you to send me an e-mail through this site if you would like to discuss this in more detail beyond this thread.

Mary Lou, SLP

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Mary Lou B. Johnson, M.S.,CCC-SLP
http://www.helpyourchildspeak.com

Mary Lou,

I live in Missouri, so Denver is a bit of a drive! Thanks for thinking about me, though!

My son started making his nonsense sounds around 1 year of age. Before that, he was almost completely silent except of laughter and crying.

-Hay

I am so happy to have found this forum. My son will be 3 in a few months, and I could sure use someplace to discuss my concerns with people who are in a similar boat, and hopefully get some answers or new ideas for helping him. My son sounds so much like the original poster on this thread.