o whom it may concern;
I am a parent who are concerned about my child’s behavior issues as well as his speech. He is a three and half year old boy who is delayed in his speech. Additionally he has bit trouble with eye contract and he bites other children at preschool twice within 3 weeks that he attended twice a week. Another concerns we have is that other parents that we know who sent their children to special education had negative impact in their lives that the parents regrets sending to Special education that initially only started with speech. What we want is the best for our son. I was wondering if you can guides or let us know if there are any behavior and/or speech therapy available that we may use without going through public school services.
Re: Not sure what to do
I agree with rogomom - there might be more going on and you’ll need more information about your child’s profile, strengths and weaknesses to discern the major issues.
What are your concerns about Special Ed? While the system has its flaws and the quality of services vary from district to district, it will provide you and your son legel protections regarding his education.
Keeping him out of special ed will not make the problems go away, but may end up in loosing valuable instructional time.
I would start with a full educational, speech and language, OT and psycological evaluation. My preference would be to start by allowing the school district to conduct these tests. If you disagree with their evaluation, the law says that you can then request an independent evaluation at their expense.
www.concordspedpac.org has good letter templates, information on various evaluations and links to other great resources. If you are not in Massachusetts, ignore the info about MA state law. Everything else should apply.
And, yes, you should meet with your child’s pediatrician for additonal guidance.
Good luck.
Re: Not sure what to do
Yeh, usually i am against getting kids tested… In this case i would agree with the rest. Speach issues at three…. Is kinda an indication something may be up…. As for biting…. I don’t know. I would think, when one has difficulty communicating verbally, that behavior would then be the next best tool for communication. Maybe rather than viewing it solelhy as bad behavior, it might help to just try thinking about it as an attempt to communicate or to tell you or someone else something that for whatever reason he feels the need to express…. It is just a thought and an idea…. But kids with LD get very creative when it comes to doing what other people do. Other people communicate. But again i am just thinking out loud i am not an expert and i started speaking at 9 months old in complete though simple sentences. So i guess i really can’t imagine how it might be to have such difficulty. Good luck!
Re: Not sure what to do
Hi there,
as the other posters replied, yes it would be best to get some tests done to see what challenges your child may have that may need specialist input.
You may also find it helpful to look into ABA based early intervention programs.
All the best,
Trevor
www.behaviourskills.com
Not sure what to do
I wanted to touch this post again, because i just had a thought…. Is the bilingual? Because, in many cases, it seems children are much slower to talk but when they do talk they talk in both languages. Or so i have read…
Don’t give up on your child. One last minor point i want to make here…. Einstein, was unable to talk at 3 as well. He didn’t speak till age 5. Which has nothíng to do with this case. But i bring it up because far too many parents i think lose hope and freak out when their kid turns out to be a bit ‘different’ than most. Don’t lose hope.
Re: Not sure what to do
[quote=Mandi]I wanted to touch this post again, because i just had a thought…. Is the bilingual? Because, in many cases, it seems children are much slower to talk but when they do talk they talk in both languages. Or so i have read…
Don’t give up on your child. One last minor point i want to make here…. Einstein, was unable to talk at 3 as well. He didn’t speak till age 5. Which has nothíng to do with this case. But i bring it up because far too many parents i think lose hope and freak out when their kid turns out to be a bit ‘different’ than most. Don’t lose hope. [/quote]
Thank for your input. He currently turned 4, and he is still has some behavior issues. First, yes you are correct that he is bilingual. However, he speak mostly English with the words he knows. We took him various locations. We took him to a speech/hearing test center. He is speech is delayed but his hearing is fine. Took him to a neurologist but they cannot found anything wrong since there is no head injury. Recommended us to see a psychologist. We made a appointment but have to see. The public school did their parent interview and examine my son with vineland II to test his overall behavior. But I wonder how accurate or if they are testing correctly. Need some input on that and who to see for best evaluations to see if there is more than just biting or speech delay.
Not sure what to do
With the eye-contact issue, I would recommend seeing an Autism specialist. Speech issues, eye-contact and behavior all point in that direction. You may also want to look into sensory integration issues through an Occupational/Physical Therapist. Many kids on the autism spectrum have sensory issues which can also lead to behaviors.
Re: Not sure what to do
[quote=scifinut]With the eye-contact issue, I would recommend seeing an Autism specialist. Speech issues, eye-contact and behavior all point in that direction. You may also want to look into sensory integration issues through an Occupational/Physical Therapist. Many kids on the autism spectrum have sensory issues which can also lead to behaviors. [/quote]
I forgot to mention on my last post that he has some eye contract with my wife and I but not with many other. I understand that we looked into possible Autism, and took him to different people and places but no answer. One thing is certain he is very upset if we take him to any doctor office whether it is just for normal check up, dentist, vision test, hearing test, neurologist.
Not sure what to do
We have a 3 year old daughter with eye contact issue. She doesn’t have speech delay, however, they feel that her behavior may be connected to speech vulnerability. We had her tested at Yale Child Study Center few months ago. They gave her a PDD-NOS diagnosis for the moment and recommend retesting when she turns four years old because she is very much borderline on the spectrum. The report that they produced was very thorough and we feel accurate to what we have observed. the Dr. was able to articulate the nuances of her behavioral issues. It is most definately helping for any sort of advocacy in special education. We have had pretty good experience with the public school as a result. no one is about to question the results of the that report. It costs a good chunk of money but it is cheaper than a semester of pre-school which the public school is providing for free with free busing. So it ended up saving us money at the end.
Re: Not sure what to do
[quote=tegi]. It costs a good chunk of money but it is cheaper than a semester of pre-school which the public school is providing for free with free busing. So it ended up saving us money at the end.
[/quote]
May I ask you how it is cheaper than a free pre-school from public school. I do know that private is better but the cost seems extremely high. We are set meet again for another initial evaluations. It seems like the third one but this one includes initial possible IEP Meeting so I am not sure what all these means. Please help!
Not sure what to do
I dunno what is wrong nor do i know what is the cheapest solution, what i do know is this. Children who are bilingual DO tend to talk quite late. Weather they speak mostly english or not. If they are raised hearing 2 languages with some regular frequency, then they do truly tend to take a slower time. Then when they do begin to speak they typically start speaking in one language or the other with a lean towards the language they hear the most. Just offering that in case it helps in some way, prolly doesn’t but well ya never know…
You can always take him to a private speech/language pathologist for testing. You would just have to be prepared to pay for testing and services if you do not want to go through the public school. This testing may help assess your son’s delayed speech. However, there may or may not be other issues going on with your son. Sometimes kids have delayed speech because they have auditory processing problems. This is assessed by an audiologist and often is covered by health insurance. Also, the avoidance of eye contact and biting could point to other possible problems such as autism. You may be able to talk to your pediatrician about this possible concern.