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Why won’t you talk to me?!!!!
Bouncing excitedly in his, erm, bouncer one afternoon, “Dada,” chuckled our 9 month old, sun shines out of his arse, first-born. “Oh My God! He’s talking! He’s a genius!” I exclaimed to his father. “He’s making noises at the cat,” said the miserable git. “Ha, ha,” I laughed. He’s a frigging genius, I thought.
Over the next few months, fairly regularly, the boy would shout “Dada” – at the cat, at a spoon, at complete strangers, occasionally at Dada.
We moved on to a greater repertoire of sounds and the first
Our visit came and went without words. His second birthday came and went, still no talking.
It suddenly became noticeable that his little friends were starting to talk and Joe wasn’t. “He’ll just start talking in sentences”, “He’s just taking it all in”,
While I am the complete opposite of a tiger mum (the only ambitions I have for my children is that they are happy and not serial killers – but that’s what every parent wants, right?), I always rather arrogantly assumed that my child would be an early
Initially I refused to make an issue over this – all kids are different I kept telling myself, and Joe was very developed in other ways, but I did start to worry. I worried that this was starting to cause him some frustration (and us, to be honest). Without a doubt, his behaviour was affected by his lack of communication skills. I used to watch the frustration building in him when he was unable
Some of the drugs Joseph takes for his cystic fibrosis can cause hearing loss. Although his hearing had been regularly checked and given the ok, I worried if they were missing something – hearing tests on a two year old are not terribly accurate.
One of the first noticeable indicators of autism is delayed speech. So I worried about that. And, of course, I worried that the weak
So, at around 2 and half, we bit the bullet and called the Health Visitor in. After meeting Joe she reassured us that there was nothing in his behaviour to suggest autism. So it was the shandy then..?
A visit from a speech therapist followed, who reminded us that he was still very young and they wouldn’t even consider speech therapy at this age. She also pointed out that Joe was copying the sounds of words – just not forming them, and left us with a list of ways to
Third birthday came and went. No words. People, sometimes strangers (I mean nice old ladies in supermarkets, not strangers in grubby macs),
We started nursery. Still no talking. Nursery were completely nonplussed by this which did make me feel a little better.
Then one day, as we were leaving the house, Joe shouted “Bye” at his Dad out of the car window. We were on our way out to his friend’s house (same age), and got greeted at the door by his friend with “Awesome” – frigging smart arse! But still, we had the first words.
And then….nothing.
We still think it’s likely that Joe will need some speech therapy – he has trouble enunciating and forming some sounds and, while I can understand him very easily, I know that other people struggle sometimes. However, he chatters away, sings songs and talks to the nice old ladies. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I hadn’t worried quite so much about it. I
A couple of weeks ago the ten month old, sun shines out of her arse, second-born was eating a newspaper off the floor, “Mama,” she shouted