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I have a 7 year old foster child with Downs Syndrome.  she is mostly non-verbal, using words and sentences only occasionally or in moments of stress when she will ask 'Are you okay?'  'Mommy please' etc.  Now and then she will repeat an entire sentence that I use as in 'Good morning Princess.'  On such occasions her speech is perfectly clear, her words well formed.  The remainder of the time, she speaks in mostly gibberish to her dolls and to herself.  How can I help this child on a daily basis?  Can anyone help?

hi there

i would advice that you do attend a speech & langauge therapist, therapists are used to working with families who are bilingual or whose first langauge is different than their own.  As your daughter is having difficulty with the sounds f,s,sh i would also advise that she attends an audiologist as these sounds are high frequency sounds and a difficulty such as glue ear could be having an impact. 

If you want to help support speech using english materials i would recommend going to black sheep press - just type it into google and there are programmes that you could order and work with your daughter on under the guidance of your speech & language therapist. 

Good Luck!!

Hi there

i read your post and thought i would fill in a few details for you.  As your son was 14 I imagine he was assessed on the clinical evaluation of language fundamentals.  there are various subtests in that assessment such as recalling of sentences and word definitions.  The test is a standardised assessment and would allow the therapist to determine if your son's language skills were appropriate for his age.  the fact that you were discharged indicates that they probably were within normal limits ( i.e. he obtained a score between 85 - 115, the average range). 

I wouldn't recommend going for a private consulation but rather  call the therapist up and ask her to explain the scoring to you - it may highlight some minor errors of difficulty that you could target or indeed it may say that linguisically all is fine.  Hope this is helpful. 

Hi,
i am a mother of a 4 and a half year old boy who has a severe phonological disorder.  He is currently under Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.  I would love to chat with other parents of children who have speech and language disorders.

yeah plz send me that language test. it would be a great help.  i am waiting for it. my email is dearfarah@yahoo.com

i would give the PLS (preschool language scale ) test.  this will determine his receptive and expressive language skills.  do this WITHOUT  parents in the setting.  you can do this over several sessions so the child doesn't become bored or is unwilling to participate.  sounds like there are some language issues going on BUT if he just started talking this would be pretty typical.  ALSO, have the parents get his hearing checked to be sure he doesn't have inner ear problems.  hope this helps. 

Hello Everyone,

          I'm new to the forums, but not new to the speechteach site. My name is Gretchen and I'm an SLP (SLT) in the United States and I also work as the Integrated Preschool Classroom Teacher (ages 3 - 5 years old) in a school district north of Boston.  I am interested in spending 3 - 6 weeks in the UK next summer, learning about how inlcusion and speech therapy work in the UK and differ from the setup in the US. I have been trying to look up international professional development opportunities on the internet, but I am not having much luck. Does anyone know anyone who has done this that you could put me in contact with?A school, an agency, or a college/university that has offerings like this?   I'm not necessarily looking for an 'exchange' per se, but perhaps a school or schools that would accept an international learner.  Thanks for any help you can give me.

GACgirl

Hi.

well i am a speech therapist too. but sometimes its not an easy task to handle a child of our own family as a therapist.well i have a case please check and give solution. my brother's son 3years old is having a speech delay. he started talking 4 months ago. now he is having a language disorder,syntax. (eg, mama glass juice) secondly i feel he is showing some signs of autism. as i didnt have any battery to test him on it,so i can not title him right now. more, the child want to play alone,dont like interruptions,but according to mood. in peers, his behaviour is stubborn and beat other children. he just want that all praise him all the time and thats it. i feel there is also fault of parenting too in developing many things like that. they made him over pampered, protective,spoon fed etc.

my question is that , child beats others and like solitary play because of his hinderance of speech, or there are some other causes in his stubborness?
Number 2 question is, how must i start his speech therapy, as a normal child or some sort of catagory must be involved,like autism or anything else?

about the child, he is delay in communication as i mentioned above, having antisocial habits. not any steriotypic behaviour but sometimes very rare, have good eye contact.

Thanks

Hi
My daughter who is nearly 5 cannot pronounce certain sounds like F, th, Sh and s.  ~When she says the alphabet she is unable to pronounce the following
c - sounds like combination of gd
f - sounds like egg
g -sounds like d
h - sounds like ate
n - m
s -eat
t - combination of t and k
v - b
x - eat
z -combination of g and d
I think she needs some kind of speech therapy as I am unable get her to do the mouth tongue movements she needs to do.  We live in Spain and dont speak good enough spanish to get a Spanish speech therapist and think if we did it may confuse her more. Can anyone tell me if this is a common problem and is there a simple way to get her speaking properly or any advice on what I should do would be very welcome.

I was posting in the library so didn't get to complete the post above...

I feel that because of a tongue thrust/reverse swallow for more than a 25 years over a period while I did my growing sotospeak, and in addition to a poor bite for some of that time, my jaw has grown forward and down. This isn't noticeable or anything until that is you look at my teeth - where pictures in childhood show me smiling with a normal overbite in my teeth I now have teeth that meet edge to edge.

The result for my tongue seems to be that it has taken up a position on the bottom of my mouth and too far forward towards my teeth - when at rest my tongue pushes against my front teeth and would slip through them if I parted them. An indication of this bad tongue position/posture are the scalloping indentations around the front of my tongue - I've been told these are due to the tongue taking up the shape of the back of my teeth due to pressing/resting against them constantly.

Does this sort of physical development of the mouth, resulting in a speech impediment, make sense to anyone here?