Speech Delay

Amirul Started Stammering; What Do I Do?

Alhamdulillah, after nearly 1 year attending speech therapy session at Putrajaya Hospital; Amirul is a good talker now. His new nursery’ environment also helping him a lots. His has many friends to talk to and teachers teaches him in correct way. He talks better compare before he attended the speech therapy. However, lately he is having this new problem : STAMMERING / GAGAP

It’s really annoying to me, and i really get angry everytime he start stammering. I’m not sure why suddenly this problem happened as Amirul is very good with his vocabulary. He do not have any problem in articulating words except for words consisting m,b, and p. Maybe lidah Amirul pendek skit as his speech therapy claim.

What is stammering speech? - According to Stammering.org
[1] is putting extra effort into saying his words
[2] has tense and jerky speech
[3] cannot seem to get started, no sound comes out for several seconds (“… I got a teddy”)
[4] is stretching sounds in a word (“I want a ssstory”)
[5] is repeating parts of words several times (“mu-mu-mu-mu-mummy”)
[6] stops what he is saying half way through his sentence.

More info on stammering for toddlers under 5 via Stammering.org
How to HELP stammering child?
[1] Don’t be overly critical of your child’s speech or insist on precise or correct speech
[2] Listen attentively to what your child is saying
[3] Avoid reacting negatively when your child stutters, correcting your child’s speech, or completing your child’s sentences
Tips above taken from Webmd.com which i think the most effective and appropriate for Amirul. Baby steps to correct Amirul’s stammering problem from getting worse.
For Me, I NEED:
[1] to be more patience.
[2] take a deep breathe and listen to what Amirul wants to say.
[3] Be patience and wait when hetalks and express to his needs
[4] jangan dok sebok and cepat  nak marahhhhhh.
[5] Jadi mummy kena banyak sabar la Huda.

Speech Therapy Diary : Listen & Speak

Amirul’s communication skills getting better and other than me & Mr Hubby, babysitter at nursery and relatives have also started to understand what was said by Amirul. This shows that his vocabulary is increasing and he also more confident to speak out

For this session, Amirul was taught the concept of preposition. What is ‘behind’ and ‘in front’. In order to help Amirul understands the ‘behind’ & ‘in front’ concept, the therapist used a bear, spoon and wooden block as teaching aids. When the therapist asked Amirul to put the the spoon ‘in front’ of the bear, he able to put it correctly. However, when she asked Amirul to place the wooden block ‘behind’ the bear, Amirul put it ‘in front’ of the bear, the same place with the spoon. Amirul enable to put the wooden block at the correct place. That mean, Amirul still do not understand the concept of ‘behind’ and ‘in front’

Although Amirul was able to speak and most of his words are understandable, yet he still talks in his ‘language’. There are also words that he mispronounce, for example; Atas – tas, Bawah – wah, Amirul – eyol, Keretapi – api chocho. He takes either the front or end of the words. The therapist advise us not to put stress on Amirul for his mispronunciation. As far as he talks and shows improvement in his daily communication, we need to encourage and give him compliment.

Besides that, Amirul also required to listen more new words. LISTENING is the key word. By listening to our daily conversations, Amirul indirectly catching up new words and adding to his vocabulary. At the same time, I need to encourage Amirul to pronounce the words correctly.

What we need to do :

Build a sentence consist 4 – 5 words.
For Amirul’s age, he need to talk in complete sentences, eg:[1] Amirul, mummy put mee into a bowl. [2]Amirul please use the spoon to eat your mee. Amirul needs to familiarize with full complete sentence because currently, he convey his need in point form eg: Amirul wants milk instead of Amirul wants to drink milk, Amirul eat rice instead of Amirul wants to eat rice

Follow 2 instructions
Listen – process and understand  - response
I need to give two consecutive instructions for Amirul and give at least 2-3 minutes for him to process and understand the instructions before the give the response.
Eg: Amirul take this elephant and put under the table while the dinosaur put on the table

A Journey Through Pregnancy & Beyond Workshop : Communicating Effectively with Children

Communicating effectively with children

Having Amirul who facing speech delay problem is really tough job for me and Mr Hubby. Both of us struggling to teach him to speak. Sometimes its so stressful for us (Me, Mr Hubby & Amirul). But its no longer a stress situation after attended speech therapy session at Putrajaya Hospital.

According to Ms Rosmawati, effective communication with children requires communication style and behaviour appropriate to the age of child. The best parent-child relationships are characterized by a lots of positive communication and interaction on a regular basis about many different things. Do not communicate when there is a conflict. Don’t nag to your infant or toddler when there is a conflict, they don’t understand.

Different stage of age, different style of communication. That the important KEY to have successful communication with child. :P Infants communicate with gestures and sign languages while toddlers communicate with one/two word sentences. However, when you talk to your pre-schoolar, introduction of cause and effect is needed because they start to understand.

For speech delay children,there are few way to encourage them to communicate like :

  • Quick respond and predict their communicative effort can enhance their speech ability.
  • Expand on children one or two word communications and build sentences around their words [eg:Blue, your pants are blue]
  • A diary to record all their progression. [eg: record his new word, record his new task, record his activity]
  • One by one instructions [eg: Please put the ball under the table]
  • I LOOK, I SEE, I COMMENT [eg: describe for children what they are doing during play and let them have control]
  • Routines and practice. This is very important for them to understand and familiar with the new words

Autism: Mom on Mission

Has a son with austism carry heavy weight on your shoulders. This mom taking years to admit that she has the son with disability, after loses sleep, tears in her eyes . Even every birthday party is a bite of sadness — he becomes more and more challenging when he grows up. 

We know that, Preston, her adorable son, is:

  • Not like normal autism – no genius, but he is the higher-functioning end of autism.
  • Has a speech delay and language impairment, communication difficulties,
  • Difficulties in translating what he knows in conversations, while he is rich in vocabulary
  • Lack of social skills, but his heart is so desperately desperately want to friends with people.
  • He make eye contact, laugh. Unlike any other autism person
  • He, was once, screamed all day, everyday, frustrated by his inability to communicate and unable to control his feelings.
Of course, we need a team — partners, brothers, sisters, and our mother as well — to develop improvement on autism disability. It’s suicide if we do it all alone, sharing with friends is better, it helps you to get out of sadness.

Speech Delay is A Test of Patience [Speech Delay]

Photo:  Deep Shot

My eldest son can’t speak clearly. Now it’s been 40 months. Of course, he can make sentences, in his mind. But when he wants to get it out of his mouth, he leaves us in wonder — what does he really want?.

Usually he gives up what he wants to say, play another toy or bursts into tears.

We have been seeing therapy doctor 4 times now. I feel relief in my chest that Amirul starting to get improve and he can express the basic needs like — going to toilet; “wee-wee/iyak”, want to have lunch or dinner; “rice or mee”, want to watch cartoon; “dumbo” or “rio”.

I read Sophia Speech update and — What good can we take from charmingly chandler are:

  1. speech delay is really test of patience and consistency.
  2. Learning sign is a good way to move forward.
  3. Express what she wanted can be like this: total break downs in the middle of old navy where she throws herself on the ground repeating things you can’t understand.

Speech delay is burning my heart like a flame, trying to understand what my eldest son really want. I, sometime, can’t take the heat, and try to arsorb the anger by playing angry bird or accoustic guitar, or more religious way, recite Al-Quran. Well if learning sign is a good way to move forward. I would really want to discuss with my wife that we could somehow apply basic signs that communicate with my son.

In conclusion, speech delay is a test of patience. I feel relief to know some parent have a same problem like me.

[An Update On Sophia's Speech Via Charmingly Chandler]

Baby Talking Milestone [Speech Delay]

Photo: Jerrold

 

Here some info about average children get to speak well. Talking milestones is noted here from 1st up to 5th year. And most of the babies are well with this skill from 9 to 15 months. And speech delay and disorders happen in boys, mostly. If your children happened to have speech delay — the boy is more than 2 years  and fails to speak any word — I suggest you have to seek appointment with voice therapy. As of my eldest son, we have been seeing a doctor for a while and, believe or not, we are as parents, play a great influence on improving our children speech delay.

[Toddler Talking Milestone via GuideToParenting]

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