My son is 2 on january 11th. We have been in speech therapy for about 4 weeks now. It seems to be somewhat helping, but it is def slow going. He has been assessed at the 12-15mths level devolpmentally.
He is also getting testing done for the autism spectrum in january. Autism, ADD, and dyslexia run on his fathers side.

anywho, anyone else have a late talker? any advice, activities, or just plain encouragement would be cool thanks

My nephew was quite late talking as well, and pretty slow with some of his learning such as colors, numbers, alphabet and such. He was assessed for autism etc. but nothing specific ever came of it. Anyway, he's 6 now and going to school, talking much better, pretty much "caught up" in his development.
Give it time, keep working with him on a regular basis.

The first thing I recommend is to find as many things you can use as positive reinforcement as possiable they can be activities, games, puzzles, trampoline, movies dirnks and snacks books ect with my son what works best is something i can physically hold and show him so he can really understan that that will be his motivator. My son and I are following the verbal behavior project in PA. The first thing they do is to teach the child to cooperate and enjoy "the floor time" Dont force him to sit on the floor make him really want to use his enforcers to show him that if he sits down with you it will be fun and he will gt something out of it that he wants. This is called PAIRING you associate this time with his favorive things. So in the beginning We used to just let him know that I am sitting here and I have your favovite snack or whatever and if you come over I'll give it to you. This giving to him for freewithout demanding anything. After he dicides he wants to be there with you. Start asking him to communicate or atleast try and when he has attempted to do so you give him the reimforcer. This is called MANDING you can Show him the object that he wants. Waait fotr him to ask for it using either words or someother form of communication then he gets the reinforcer. another thing that helped was to encourage echoic speech saying the word then when he says it give him lots of praise. I have a huge pile of picturt cards and every day would show them to him pointing to the picture saying the word and (hoping he would repeat. He also a few years into the therapy started to use the cards to Mand for what he wanted.
My son is six. He is living with autism. He had No words at three and 4 words at age 4 aroungd age 5 veverything started really coming together and he started to actually repeat every wword i taught to him but his speech was only echoic. He is now 6 and is saying things like "can I have some juice please?" This is such a big deal for us words cant even begint oexplain how excited we are at every new word or phrase. I don't know how delayed your sons speech is but these things are designed to work with a typical child as well s one struggeling with autism and other disorders. Its a pretty simple approach but it takes a ton of patienct. OH and if he thrown a tantrum because you dn't give him the reimforcer because he hasn't tried you have to ignoer him. which was very hard for me to do. I recommend aside from his speech therapy you set aside a half hour about threetimes a day where someone is dorectly working with him and the rest of the time just be aware is he brings you his sippy cup bend down get at eye level and say" juice you want JUICE" making sure to always over pronounce the word. If there is anything I can help you with feel free to IM me.

Haas anyone ever tried the brain gym?

I used it often with my son.

WE also did teh hannon program..at cheo...since you live like 25 min. away, hmmm wondering how i can get the material to you.

It is an ongoing battle...I didn't put my son on any medication...he was simply diagnosed as a GLD...general learning disability...whatever that is suppose to mean LOL

anyway, he wasn't autistic, but just generally slower than everyone else..he was in special classes and programs etc...

but doing rather well...
now through his psych appts, they are thinking he is ADD...or a a form of it, so they will be doing tests on it...

I am not to crazy about the medication aspect...but i will cross that bridge when i get there.

singleparentcoach_ WHat is the brain gym I have never heard of that??
I do agree with you as far as medication goes I will never say never but so far my son has only improved throughout the years so the way I see it is what we are doing id helping if he ever started to reghress for an extended period of time who knows I may consider medication. Btw Mirands I don't know how you feel about your son getting the diagnosis of ADD but just keep this in mind...I knew there was something not quite typical about my son for a long time before the doctors would even consider it..then when they finally decided that I was right and yes he did have autism I was reileved to find that my fears were justified and there was an explanation for his behaviors. And more importantly the actual diagnosis ment that he is eligable for alot more help. So when he was diagnosed at 2 1/2 he finally was able to start some therapys that could have been benefitng him long before.

everyone please forgive all my typos..I am terriable typist.

"Brain Gym activities were discovered to either stimulate (laterality dimentions), release (focusing dimension), or relax (centering dimension) students involved in particular types of learning situations."

"The function of the human brain, like a hologram, is three dimensional with parts inter-relating as a whole. This is how the infant, toddler or pre-school child is capable of taking in the adult world and re-creating it. Learning happens easily when it is presented in a multi-dimensional multi-sensory orientation. The human brain is also task specific. The human brain, for the purposes of understanding Brain Gym movements may be divided into left and right hemispheres (laterality) brain stem and frontal lobes (focus dimention) and limbic system and crebral cortex (centering dimention)"

LOL I will share examples.

"students consciously choose to continue movements for a matter of fweeks or months to help reinforce the new learning. Many learners return to the Brain Gym movement routines when new stresses or challenges appear in their lives."

-learning blocks can be released
-it is a healthy alternative which we can use and teach others to use when negativity and limitations present themselves.

Ex: midline movement..lateral (left/right) movement across the midline of the body..eases the learning in the near visual area."

Cross Crawl, Lazy 8's, Double Doodle, alphabet 8's, The elephant, neck rolls...and there are about 41 pages of activities...

I can either post one up every week on the forum, or photocopy them, and mail them out to you...

MM

and how do I feel about my son's possible diagnosis...right now still absorbing it all...aside from my son having a small heart blockage, high blood pressure, polycystic kidneys and tourettes, I think my plate is full right now.


It's a downer, but with the kidneys and blood pressure, I am leaning towards NO meds, because the side effects are too enormous for a kid in his condition. If he was healthy i might consider it, but I don't think it is healthy for his kidney nor his liver, despite the doctor saying there is very little side effects. From teh literature I took out from medical journals, I am not advising it for my kid.

If when he is older he feels he needs it, then it will be up to him.

jacobmonkey...i just realized i have no way at the moment to mail them to you until you get access to the private pm function on SFV...when you get 50 posts, and you ask Robin on the forum to give you access, let me know and then I can send that stuff out to you.

singleparent thanks for the info I would love to learn more. I am always looking for new ways to help my son. Is there a book or something that you would recommend? I'm sorry to hear of all your sons obstacles right now. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you holding everything together for your son. What an amazing mom you must be!

Alot of the materials I have are photocopied through courses I took, from teachers who made their own materials on it. However I did find a site of www.braingym.com

There is a book written by Paul E. Dennison. I believe he is the one who created the brain gym. He himself has learning difficulties and the theories are based on Kinesiology.

They are fun to do with the kids, and physiotherpists use them with children. The kids enjoy doing them provided they are integrated in a "fun" fitness circle time (my experience only as I didn't go to deep in studying it)

For you on the other hand, you may find it very interesting. They offer professional courses in it, and you can actually become qualified to teaching it, if that is something you wanted to do later or now...on that site there are books and videos. They have cool movement charts to follow as well, or just to put up on the walls if you have a daycare, that parents can look at, learn from and do it at home with their kids.

quote:

Originally posted by normajean-sugar:
singleparent thanks for the info I would love to learn more. I am always looking for new ways to help my son. Is there a book or something that you would recommend? I'm sorry to hear of all your sons obstacles right now. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you holding everything together for your son. What an amazing mom you must be!

Well, it sure aint easy, but who said life was easy right? I'm just grateful that he can play, still enjoy his life, go out, have fun, and simply able to explore his own life and new discoveries. I am more grateful that he isn't in any kind of pain.
However, my biggest dilemma right now is controlling his blood pressure. The fact that he is a big eater, hitting teenage years does NOT HELP. Controlling what he eats I feel guilty about. I always feel like I am depriving him, but my worst fear, is that he becomes too self-conscious about his weight that he damages his body further.
We go to the gym 3 times a week, and while he is the youngest member because they don't normally allow kids his age to use the equipment, they are very supportive of our goals. That was a blessing. He even gets support from other male members who give him little tips and tricks, and he is pretty attentive watching how others are using the equipment. Sometimes though I think he forgets that he is only 14 and he tries too hard to lift what the men are lifting LOL...I have to continously watch him. His gym teacher at school is incredibly supportive. He has been teaching him new moves that he can try out at the gym so he gets excited about that.

And speak for yourself Mrs Incredible mom...supporting your children after what you all have been through...while trying to keep yourself together. I would have to say your husband knew what he was doing when he chose you as his wife.