speech delay, speech therapy in toddler?

bagel

Registered User
Hello all,

My son is 2 years 9 months old and has started kindergarten last month. He can say words and is slowly getting the hang of phrases but compared to his peers, my son is behind in vocabulary as well as in terms of expressing himself in complete sentences. He also mixes up the M and N sounds and replaces B and Y with T. For instance, he'll say "tellow" instead of "yellow" or "tus" instead of "bus".

I am wondering whether this is a speech impediment that will sort itself out as he gets more exposure in school or whether we need diagnosis and intervention. I am interested to hear from others who might have similar issues with their toddlers speech. If you can recommend specialists who can assist us, that would be beneficial too.

Many thanks!
 
children often have difficulty with some sounds.... that's normal and not out of the ordinary.

however, if he seems to be behind to you, then maybe seeking a professional opinion would be the way to go? that would at least offer you the help that he needs or set your mind at rest.
 
dang, I used to have the name of a really good speech therapist who worked privately. she would come to your home for the sessions... sadly, it was about 6 years ago and I can't remember her name. I'm sorry! I wish I could help.
 
Is it Sam Pygall? We noticed our son had some speech/sound immaturities before he turned three. Sam came to our home and worked with him for about 6 months, and she was fantastic with him! He really improved all out of recognition!!
 
I just got some contact details for three different STs here in HK the other day. All three are westerners, from the look of their names:

Carol Adcock - integrate HK www.integratehk.com.hk 25222692
Louise McCann - SPOT www.physiohk.com/spot 25445835
Bianca Vowell - (I don't have a website or anything, just a phone number which appears to be a mobile number. PM me if you specifically want her number as I'm not sure if I should be sharing it in public)
 
my daughter is in a similar situation - would recommend you do an assessment to see where you stand and then ask for recommendations about what should be done.


The therapist which I found very professional is Dr Anna Lee, her e-mail is [email protected] you can visit her website at www.dyslexiacentre.hk

I've done numerous assessments (one at Pamela Youde and one at Matilda too) since my LO was 16mths and you will find that the findings will be very different depending on the cultural background of the therapist. with this in mind, you should use your own personal judgement to see how much your child needs. i've started ST with mine and am crossing my fingers i can learn a few tricks to practice with my kid at home - today was the first lesson and it was not successful! :(

i have found that schooling has definitely helped and having put her back one year so my child can feel confident in learning (even with a language delay) is what our family has decided to do. good luck with whatever you decide. for us, the important thing was to see progress and not to compare her to peers but rather to see improvement within herself.
 
thanks so all the mums who put this info up. I've also been looking at getting 21mth old boy evaluated as he has spoken barely 5 words. Also our insurance will cover it till the end of this yr so I thought I should get this looked at now. I was actually going to wait till after his 2nd birthday but we will have to foot the bill then ... hate to be so pragmatic but in hk insurance is so impt!
 
An update for those interested: We went to Carol Adcock and have to say that we were disappointed. She couldn't finish the assessment in one hour (cost HKD 1000) and she ran over by 20 minutes. And then she asks us to book another 45 min session (at additional cost of HKD 850) to complete the assessment. She was rambling and didn't address the issue we went in to get assessed. Found her to be unfocused. Prior to the appointment I found her unresponsive. She doesn't reply to her emails and because she didn't respond to my query by email I sent her an sms which took her 2 days to respond to. Given her ramblings, I had to reiterate the reason for our consultation and had to remind her the primary reason why we were there and then had to press her to give a diagnosis and even then she didn't say anything we didn't know. We are disappointed as we had hoped to come away with a definitive diagnosis and practical solutions or strategies to correct my son's pronunciation errors.

BTW what are her qualifications? Their website doesn't mention anything.
 
We noticed our 4 year old son was having issues with speech/sound errors too. I found an American woman here who will come to your home, and Gus really loves her. We've seen noticeable improvement in the last few months since he started working with her. Her name is Nicole, and she has a Masters in Speech and is a certified teacher of speech disorders. Her email is [email protected], but if you want more info or her phone #, PM me. I don't want to post it publicly since it's a cell. Good luck to you and your son!
 
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