speech therapy

So I'm wondering if anyone can share experiences about speech therapy...when did your pedi reccomend it? How often? Ect

I'm thinking at their 18 month well check our pedi might reccomend it, atleast for Mackenzie. Mackenzie sometimes says mama and dada (not as much lately) but I'm not quite sure she knows what they mean. So I would say she only has 2 words if any.
Jack is doing better now-he says mama, dada, ball, bye bye, and just this morning when I told Mackenzie no no he copied me.

I read to them a lot, I explain things to them, ect. We even do some flash cards. Is there anything else I can/should be doing?

Its funny because they seemed to hit a lot of milestones early (early crawling, walking) and have excellent motor skills so I guess I just expected them to hit speech right on too-guess not,lol.

 

I actually just had their 15 month today and mentioned how I would get a speech eval at 18 months. The Doc said it's good to wait because twins are often slower in speech development and sometimes once it comes, it pours in ( I have heard this from speech therapists I work with as well) I would still get an eval and see if she qualifies. It can't hurt. It sounds like you are doing everything that you should be.

 

We got it at 18 months, mine were talking about as little as yours. Mine didn't understand that well either though, but we're a two language finally so it never really surprised me. The doctor told us to see EI.

Anyway, they've been having speech therapy with early intervention once a week each since... it's helped some, but I think my kids are just not ready to talk yet. DS has started saying more words (honestly, I'd never guess what he means if he didn't just repeat what I just said, and he still mostly repeats sounds), DD still only says a few. The speech therapist does pretty much the same thing - sing to them, read books and try to get them to say words and point at the pictures etc. She told me the key is to use one or two word sentences as much as possible to get them to talk, so we've been working on that.

 

We waited until they were two. It was at that time that it was apparent to me that it was needed.

 

At our 15 month appointment we mentioned that ours said Mama and Dada, but didn't really know who we are - meaning they don't see us walk in the room and say it, or call out to us to get our attention using those labels. If I say something like, bring Mama your shoe, or take Dada the book they can do it, though. I don't really think I give them much occasion to really need to say mama and dada and we have started trying to work on it. Anyway, when our (usually very laid back and wait and see) pediatrician heard that, he immediately recommended they get a hearing test and then a speech evaluation. He sent us to a local center (not EI) and after spending time with our families over the holidays and hearing repeatedly that nobody thought there were any issues, we did cancel that appointment. Money is tight right now and just those appointment were going to cost us $1,000 - when we talked to the therapist to cancel she said she thought it was a good idea to wait because they really wouldn't draw any conclusions about treatment needed until at least 18 months. She said that if they were still having trouble at 18 months then we should call Early Intervention. My pediatrician is going to be upset at our 18 month appointment to learn that we are waiting, but you do what you think is best and right now we think the kids can definitely hear and are doing fine. Like yours, my ds is doing better than dd. I think, though, that he has more of a pleaser personality so he will repeat and point things out more whereas my dd will say it and then clam up if she isn't in the mood to repeat. I have noticed that they have picked up more words now that we use the repeat (over and over and over) method and just point out everything we come across. I didn't even know the ds knew what his couch was but this morning I told him to take his socks to his couch and he just marched right over there and sat down, and also this morning when ds was having a meltdown dd went to him and patted him on the head and gave him a kiss - I think they know more then they let on! I know that it is hard for me to think of easy words that I can point out to them so just for some ideas these are the words the kids are now saying - ball, book, block, shoe, sock, bye bye, nigh nigh, dog, Marley (or their version of our dog's name), pig, up, down, and ta tu (thank you).

Wow, sorry about the novel - can you tell I have been obsessing about this ! It seems like to me you are doing all the right things and should just continue to work on it and reevaluate in a few months! I do think, too, that mobility plays a role in delaying speech acquisition - both of mine have learned to run, jump, twirl, and climb already and I think that is taking a lot of their attention!

 

I was worried about my girls are their 15 month appt. I mentioned it to my pedi and she wasn't concerned at all. She wanted 10 words at their 18 month appt. One of mine says more than that. The other doesn't, but she does try. It just doesn't come out right. I've noticed in the last few weeks the one that has said more all along is starting to say more and more. It's crazy how fast it happens. The other one still isn't saying as much, but I'm not too worried. I know that a lot of kids don't talk until 2ish, so I'll worry then.

 

Did you have a 15 months WBV? What (if anything) did the ped say about this?

I agree that it can never hurt to be evaluated. It sounds like you are doing everything right, but it might be good to get an outside opinion. At best, you will be reassured, at worst you're getting help early which is great!

I have 1 boy who is a chatterbox (Nate) and 1 who is less so (Jack). I do notice that when Nate is around Jack talks a lot less. If I point at a picture and ask them "what's that" for something I know they know the word for, Nate always answers first. I think Jack figures Nate already answered, so why bother! ardon: Maybe Mackenzie is the same way.

Also, if your LOs are exceeding in physical milestones, maybe they're concentrating on those things and speech is taking a backseat. One day they might start chatting up a storm. My Jack is definitely more physically adept than Nate, and he's the one talking a lot less.

I hope some of the responses you've gotten are reassuring. :hug:

 

Here's a good link that gives some good info. for speech and language milestones. You can click on the link at the bottom and it'll give you the speech sound norms too.

http://www.speechdelay.com/milestones