Does speech delay=reading delay?

[BearWallowSchool]

My son will be 3 next month and he has a vocabulary of about 5-10 words. He can say Mommy, Daddy, bowl, bow, Papaw, ball. He can say the names of these letters: A, B, D, and E. I've noticed when he is trying to say new words he will leave off the last syllable (ex. hah=hot, bi=big) He calls his sister Emma= E-dah. He has been in speech therapy since October. Since that time he has gained a few words. When he turns 3 next month we will go to the local public school for speech 3 times a week. Hopefully, we will see some improvement. However, I'm worried that since he is having trouble talking that he will automatically have trouble learning how to read. Have any of you had children with speech delays that had no trouble learning to read or is it likely he will have trouble? I'm just really worried about him. Will he talk? Will he read? He has no trouble understanding speech. The SLP said his ability to take in language is above age level, but his output is WAY below age level. I'm just worried bc I'm going to be homeschooling and I don't want to be pressured into sending him to PS b/c of a learning disability.

[BearWallowSchool]

Just to clarify. I'm not expecting to teach him to read now, I'm just worried about were he will be in the next 2 to 3 years. :001_smile:

[PeterPan]

Tiffany, you need to do some reading about apraxia and make sure you got the right diagnosis. What you described is picture perfect for it. And if it's apraxia you want a different therapy. PROMPT is amazing for apraxia. My ds at 2, like your ds, had next to nothing (2 sounds/m/ and /a/ and one word, mama), no animal sounds, no sound when playing, nothing. Anything he had said, he only said once or twice and then lost. With PROMPT he started gaining sounds very quickly and is now generally intelligible, speaks in long sentences, and is constantly conversant. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad, because I KNOW how horrible it is to face the not speaking, not intelligible thing. He's diagnosed as moderate apraxia btw. So in one year he went from nothing to amazing. The SLP says probably by age 5 he'll be indistinguishable from anyone else.

 

So I talk a lot about PROMPT on the boards, but only because it has been so amazing for us. We also do flax oil (he doesn't do well with fish oil, the usual thing people take) and takes enzymes if he gets into milk, etc. The diet stuff can *definitely* affect speech. When we give him the flax oil (others do fish) his speech goes up. If we forget for a few days, it peters down and gets really rough. Then we put him back on and it goes up again.

 

Once you have him able to speak, I think you're going to find it a lot easier to weave in beginning phonics. I already do with my ds. As you say, there is a strong correlation between apraxia and dyslexia. I taught my dd12 to read with SWR. It's OG-based, and anything in that family is ideal for a child you suspect will be or could be dyslexic. It worked out really well for my dd, so I'm already using the methodology with ds. It's really simple to weave in, now that he can talk. We'll play games to work on speech and I'll have him do the phonogram sounds as well. Or we'll chant through them during a diaper change.

 

That's the sort of stuff I know how to do because I've already btdt with another dc, but you can learn that now, ahead of the curve. PLAN on him being dyslexic, research and pick your materials, learn the methods now, head it off at the pass. If he's not, no biggee, won't hurt him. If he is, you've done your learning now and not hid your head in the sand or missed prime time to study or spent time wandering down a path that wasn't going to work. Just my two cents.

 

BTW, if you want to spend no money but get started now, WRTR (Writing Road to Reading) should be at your local library. Read that and start learning. There's SO much you can do at this age, just naturally integrated in. This is a boy? I read my boy non-fiction and stuff about animals, building, etc. I sort of figure he's going to have that engineering, natural slant, just based on how good his fine motor skills are (a side benefit of the apraxia!). So as you're playing games or reading books, you just weave it in. You say the sounds for the letter A (there are three), and he points to the letter that says it. Or you do an alphabet puzzle or letter of the week craft and say the three sounds as you trace it. Easy peasy, just nicely woven in.

 

My ds doesn't *appear* to have any issues with auditory processing. Some do. I would imagine something extra like that would reek havoc on the education process. Oh, I also plan to get him evaluated between ages 5 and 6 by a neuropsych. I went through enough guessing and quandaries with my dd, I'm not even gonna wait. He has a fall birthday, so his age 5 will be K4 (my choice, my label), and he'll turn 6 the fall I call K5. So I figure if I get the eval done and get those results before the fall when he turns 6, I go into K5 with solid info but a little bit of experience teaching him to blend that with. That way I can know upfront if he has processing or working memory or other issues going. With dd I didn't understand all this stuff and was just frustrated for so long. A np eval can be expensive if your insurance doesn't pay for it ($1500 here!), but it's SO worth it. Somebody else may think differently, and I definitely think it depends on who you get and how just generally helpful they are. Mine spent two hours going through every subject and applying the test results and giving suggestions on the best way to work with her. Others here have walked in and found a very hs antagonistic np who basically told them everything was their fault and to put them in school (a bunch of crock). So take your time and find someone who has really good feedback from other homeschoolers. I'm just saying for me, doing it the 2nd time around, I'm not waiting. You lose a lot of sleep homeschooling, trying to figure out this and how to do that. I don't need to lose one more bit of sleep over something that is so easily resolvable and solvable with a visit to the np. Might be expensive, but I figure it's teacher development. I NEED that information so I can teach him correctly. So don't short-change yourself or talk yourself out of it. Save up the $$ and get it done if you see any academic issues or have any concerns. That's my advice. Or you can being doing it at age 9, 10, 11, and 12 like the rest of us, after you've had a bunch of frustrations. ;)

 

Man I'm blunt tonight! But there you go. :)

[blessedmom3]

Not necessary , but possible. Reading is separated in two :

-decoding

comprehension.

Some dc have trouble learning to decode words ( read, sound the words out) , other read at or above grade level but have trouble to comprehend what they read. Other dc have trouble with both.

 

The good sign is that you mentioned his receptive language is ok , only the expressive is delayed. My son was like that. He has learned to read at 4 ( with a good phonics program ) but now at 7 he still has comprehension issues, although he can decode at about 4th grade level. He comprehends at about k-1s grade , which is not too behind but we do work a lot .

[Tokyomarie]

It is a significant risk factor because the same phonological processes (the brain's process of interpreting speech sounds & ordering them within words) that are involved in speech production are also involved in the reading process. It is, however, not automatic that a child with a significant expressive speech delay will have difficulty learning to read.

 

Since it is a risk factor, would be good to learn about such concepts as phonemic awareness and Orton-Gillingham based reading methods. If you use a method that is consistent with O-G principles from the very beginning, you'll be in a good place for avoiding and/or catching potential early reading difficulty.

 

My son was in a similar place to your son in speech development when he was turning 3yo. He had excellent receptive language (though he tested poorly on initial tests of receptive language because he doesn't like to "perform"), but his expressive speech was severely delayed. He did very well in speech therapy and by one year later his speech production was within normal limits. However, he didn't develop the sounds that come in later on his own & we did another round of speech therapy when he was 6.5yo. His early learning of letter sounds came along nicely but he had tremendous difficulty learning to blend sounds and that began a long journey of difficulty with reading. If my knowledge base, which was better than average then, had been what it is now, we could probably have prevented some of the difficulty my son has had over the years. However, my son is a bright young man, and though he still has certain struggles with written language & other aspects of learning, he is doing well overall.

[Crimson Wife]

Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on whether he has any issues beyond the speech delay or whether he's just a "natural late talker".

 

My 2nd child had a speech delay but about age 4 1/2 he had a huge cognitive breakthrough and he actually learned to decode a few months later. He's now 6 and a very strong reader.

 

I was getting ready to try LiPS with him shortly before he had the breakthrough because I was worried about his phonemic awareness. It turned out to be unnecessary for him but I'm keeping it in mind for my 3rd child when she's older.

[PeterPan]

BTW, I don't know where you live in KY, but the SLP we used that is certified in PROMPT and absolutely *amazing* is in Cincinnati. It would be worth the drive, unless you can find someone equally qualified who is closer. I did the parent workshop for PROMPT (and she teaches you how to do the techniques yourself during the sessions), so now we only go once a month. I just do the rest at home. It seems to be working out very well and makes the long drive and the price more doable.

[PeterPan]

It is a significant risk factor because the same phonological processes (the brain's process of interpreting speech sounds & ordering them within words) that are involved in speech production are also involved in the reading process. It is, however, not automatic that a child with a significant expressive speech delay will have difficulty learning to read.

 

I'm reading this over and over trying to understand this. Want to talk about it more or flesh it out? For instance if a dc has processing speed or working memory issues, that would affect both expressive language and decoding (decoding very dramatically), because both require crunching in the brain. And it's very true that apraxia usually doesn't occur in isolation, at least according to our SLP and everything I've seen on the boards watching people. She says my ds *might* be pure apraxia, nothing else, and I STILL don't trust it. That's why my plan is to get the eval. And I guess the op reading these posts should see that, that most (many?) of the people telling these stories did go on to need to do neuropsych evals. Might as well do them, plan on them, and save the grief of fighting the invisible enemy. At least when you do the evals you know your issues or know they aren't there. (Hopefully!)

 

So anyways, I'm still chewing on that. I guess it's sort of obvious, but I'm still pondering. The way I taught dd to read, she didn't have to sound out. (Well she couldn't, so she didn't, so we didn't, humph.) Anyways, I figure it's not that dramatic a stretch to get to the point where his /sh/ or whatever is easy and then start introducing the written form. (We've done some Bob books btw, just using things he can already easily say.) When it's still formative for speech, he's still using all his processing to get the sound out. Then there's no processing left for reading, my expectation. So my goal would be to get it automatic (understand and read by visual, skip sounding out, as per SWR and what worked with dd) and not do reading aloud unless that speech is easy. If you require reading aloud, you're mixing too many hard tasks at once.

 

But again, that's stuff a np eval can clue you into. He can show you if the dc has processing speed or working memory issues that are piling on top of the speech or phonemic awareness to make things hard in a sort of compound way. Then you can use that knowledge to isolate the skills. You'll figure it out for your specific child.

Edited January 12, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[AimeeM]

Not in my experience.

My daughter didn't talk (at all) until 3. She was reading by 3 1/2 - 4 ish.

 

My son is 2 1/2 and speech delayed due to a lung condition that is now corrected (we hope). He has a similar vocabulary to your little one.

Want to know something funny though? Despite the fact that he cannot effectively use words to communicate with others; he CAN say his numbers, letters, AND beginning phonics thanks to Starfall. Lol.

Odd child.

 

No, I do not think speech delay automatically means reading delay. Some kids simply have nothing to say.

[wapiti]

Like everyone else said, maybe, maybe not.

 

Take, for example, this tale of twin boys: neither could speak a single word at 3 y.o. After that, the speech of Twin A takes off. Twin B has much more trouble with speech, and is still in speech therapy at 8 y.o. Twin A begins reading earlier than Twin B, but Twin B, a bit of a late bloomer (that's an understatement) nonetheless miraculously zooms ahead in reading during the second half of K. Both are reading at a relatively high level at the end of K but Twin A continues to read better than Twin B. Similar difference continues in third grade. So, while there were/are relative differences in learning to read between the two of them, ultimately the speech delay did not foreshadow a significant delay in learning to read.

 

In contrast, there's the older sister. Speech delay until about 3 y.o., at which time speech was normal. Earlier speech delay was blamed on apraxia according to the speech therapist. She had great trouble blending sounds - just could. not. do. it. It is discovered, in first grade, that she has a vision tracking problem - ocular motor (which was then fixed with VT, at which time reading level improved dramatically). It stands to reason that the cause of the speech delay may have something in common with the cause of the vision problem, i.e., motor issues of one sort or another.

 

Where there are speech problems happening at the same time as learning to read, I believe the speech problem can cause trouble with learning the sounds.

[MistyMountain]

I looked into it when ds was in speech therapy. There is a correlation between late talking and later issues in school in language related areas and I believe reading was included. It does not affect scores in other areas. I don't think that all late talkers will have issues but a kid who is a late talker is more likely to have problems in language related areas than a kid was advanced or average in that area and they have over all better scores. That doesn't mean all late talkers will have issues and all early talkers will be advanced. There is a true catagory of late bloomers where a kid will start developing intelectually later but once they do they move fast and then they keep developing longer and end up really intellegent. Like a kid who hits puberty late and was on the small side ends up really tall. You neve rknow though if a kid is in that catagory or if they do need extra help. So I think that yes they are more likely to have reading issues but you don't know they will and if they do you still don't know where they will end up.

 

My ds is talking now. He has trouble making sounds. He now is missing a lot of sounds but it is still age appropiate but I wonder how that will affect when we start to work on reading.

[LittleIzumi]

Depends. The Drama had a speech/communication delay (probably a combination of hidden/symptomless ear infections and severe sensory issues) and was in OT from 17 months, but started reading at 3.

[choirfarm]

Well, my son was 2 and at the check-up they asked how many two word phrases he was putting together. Ummm he said maybe 4 words at that point. We checked his hearing, it was fine. In kindergarten they put him in speech therapy because he whispered. ( Not to me..but to others) and couldn't say r's, th's correctly, etc. He really didn't start talking until 4 or 5. But he was reading before he went to kindergarten. I always played games with him as we were waiting in doctor's offices: fine me an b or point to c. Later he would say the name of the letter. Reading was extremely easy for him. He was always looking at books. He just didn't want to talk.

 

This same child is a junior in high school now. He made a 34 on the ACT. He is doing Spanish at the cc for dual credit. He missed one point on his oral report for that class!!!! It was a 4 minute speech they had to give at the end of the semester.

 

So don't give up!!! I remember spending years saying what he said after him because he didn't say it correctly. I would redo it in a complete sentence or say it correctly when he missed an r or something. He did have 3 years of speech therapy in school as well as being in the pull-out gifted program.

 

So.. it doesn't necessarily mean they won't be able to read!

[merry gardens]

My son will be 3 next month and he has a vocabulary of about 5-10 words. He can say Mommy, Daddy, bowl, bow, Papaw, ball. He can say the names of these letters: A, B, D, and E. I've noticed when he is trying to say new words he will leave off the last syllable (ex. hah=hot, bi=big) He calls his sister Emma= E-dah. He has been in speech therapy since October. Since that time he has gained a few words. When he turns 3 next month we will go to the local public school for speech 3 times a week. Hopefully, we will see some improvement. However, I'm worried that since he is having trouble talking that he will automatically have trouble learning how to read. Have any of you had children with speech delays that had no trouble learning to read or is it likely he will have trouble? I'm just really worried about him. Will he talk? Will he read? He has no trouble understanding speech. The SLP said his ability to take in language is above age level, but his output is WAY below age level. I'm just worried bc I'm going to be homeschooling and I don't want to be pressured into sending him to PS b/c of a learning disability.

As others mentioned already, speech delays may be a risk factor for reading problems, but some people have speech delays with no reading problems later, while others have reading problems with no history of speech problems.

 

I want to address your last point. Even if it should turn out that your dc does have a learning disability when he reaches school age, that doesn't mean you won't be able to homeschool him. There are resources out there for homeschoolers with reading struggles and other various learning disabilities.

[Janie Grace]

Just chiming in to say that in my experience, speech delay did NOT equal reading delay. My ds8 has dyspraxia. He spoke late, always at the very bottom of the range of normal. He read on time (5/6) and now he reads at several grades above his grade level. His issues are more with handwriting.

[Sugar Fly]

Speech delay did not mean reading delay in our case. Our DD struggled with expressive and receptive language but practically taught herself to read at a very early age. She is now an excellent reader with a huge vocabulary. She does struggle with handwriting. Either way, I think you can still homeschool him :001_smile:

[Walking-Iris]

My oldest had a speech regression at 2 and we didn't have any issues at all learning to read. He began to read around 5 years old. I have to second the omegas. We did flax oil every day and he started talking again.

 

Also like others said it just depends. My ASD child with the speech problems had very good receptive and no reading problems. My NT 4 year old knows letters and some sounds but has no interest in reading at the level I saw in my oldest before he was 4.

 

Of course my ASD kiddo had hodge podge of issues when he was little---regresions in speech and yet he was hyperlexic as well and had a diagnosed auditory processing issue that was apparently outgrown because he doesn't show/test for it any longer. He shows some retention problems and needs things taught in a repetitive spiral review approach though.

 

I would suggest speech therapy, supplements and no worries.

[Riverland]

Speech delay did not mean reading delay in our case. Our DD struggled with expressive and receptive language but practically taught herself to read at a very early age. She is now an excellent reader with a huge vocabulary. She does struggle with handwriting. Either way, I think you can still homeschool him :001_smile:

 

Ditto for my DD.

[EKS]

My older son had a mild speech delay (but when you compare him with his brother, it was fairly major) and then his speech was odd when it came--he had a lot of his own words for things, for example. He has dyslexia (with reading problems) and I think the speech thing was part of it. The book Overcoming Dyslexia has a list of symptoms to look for in toddlers and young children.

[Lecka]

I am skipping to the bottom.

 

Just my own experience.

 

First, public school is probably not equipped to help with reading. My son is in public school and it is a good thing for our family ---- but they cannot teach him to read. I could go into detail on this (and would if you are interested) but really, a) they don't know how to teach *him* and b) they don't have the resources to work with him one on one.

 

Second, my son is currently reading (just) at grade level at age 6. Once I took it on myself to find a method that will work with him and spend time with him one-on-one he has blossomed.

 

His problem is articulation, and he has had confusion of consonant sounds and other similar-sounding sounds. Speech therapy has helped him with hearing the sounds, and he is making progress in his actual speech, but I think right now he needs more or different on that.

 

My son had big problems with phonemic awareness and required lots of one-on-one time with specific methods (stuff everyone knows about here -- using tiles, going over and over segmenting and blending, doing the thing where you go cat cot pot pat pan man men ten). I can't imagine how long it would take the school to give him 60 hours of one-on-one time or how long it would take them to find the right method. But as a parent I did that with him -- one hour/day for 2 months. It is a mind-blowing amount of time for a school to spend one-on-one but not for a parent. (That is what it took, more or less, for him to go from knowing his letter sounds pretty well to sounding out a cvc word and being able to segment a cvc word. He is making faster progress now but still he needs much more repetition and review than they have at school, including the time he spent in tier 1 pull-out earlier this year.... the pull-out was good in its way but if I relied on that it would never be enough, and right now he is a little above the level of getting that pull-out.)

 

For information I liked the books Parenting Your Struggling Reader and Overcoming Dyslexia, they are both available at my library. They will have some info for things to look for in pre-school, so you can work on it or let your mind be at ease. Overcoming Dyslexia is a better book but I do like them both.

 

edit -- I have read through now and personally I agree with the people who recommend starting to research O-G methods now and planning to work them in.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Lecka

[NASDAQ]

Nearly all children can begin learning to read at five, including children with many learning disabilities.

 

My first was as speech delayed as your son appears to be and is reading simple sentences at 5.5. She needed fairly extensive work with phonological awareness and with the alphabet first though. Since then she's progressed at a normal speed.

[Shellers]

I am skipping to the bottom.

 

Just my own experience.

 

First, public school is probably not equipped to help with reading. My son is in public school and it is a good thing for our family ---- but they cannot teach him to read. I could go into detail on this (and would if you are interested) but really, a) they don't know how to teach *him* and b) they don't have the resources to work with him one on one.

 

I had the same experience! I pulled DS out of public school on Nov 1, 2011. He had been in special ed with an IEP for six years (repeated K) and had only learned to read at a beginning first grade level. If public school knew how to teach my severely dyslexic son how to read they would have because they sure had enough time. His school labeled him as "Speech Impaired". He does have speech problems but he's not speech impaired. People can understand him.

 

He's now 11 and is reading at a beginning 3rd grade level. He really only started reading last April, after I started "afterschooling" him. He really took off reading when I pulled him from school.

[Shellers]

Nearly all children can begin learning to read at five, including children with many learning disabilities....

 

This hasn't been my experience. I don't think my son was ready to learn to read until he turned 11.

 

Two of my girls were also late readers (2nd - 3rd grade) but they didn't have speech problems. My oldest DD was beginning to read at four.

[Mandamom]

My dd9 was speech delayed -- starting speech therapy at 19 months and testing out at 3 years old. By the time she was 3.5 years, she was reading Green Eggs and Ham without any help at all.

 

My ds5 is currently in speech and has been diagnosed with dyspraxia (apraxia). He is getting very frustrated that he isn't reading because it isn't coming naturally to him. He is very advanced in language and vocabulary (highest score) but reading is very slow going for him.

 

I suspect that, given how bright he is, that had he not had the apraxia/speech problem he would be reading at an earlier age just like his older sister. His delay is putting him to be reading at an average age -- which is frustrating him because he's very aware of his speech delay and his reading delay.

 

I also tutor dyslexic children (using O-G and Wilson) and there is definitely a correlation between delayed speech and reading problems. I have found frequently that teaching a child to read can help with their speech.

[Shellers]

... I have found frequently that teaching a child to read can help with their speech.

 

I've noticed the same thing with my DS.

[swellmomma]

However, I'm worried that since he is having trouble talking that he will automatically have trouble learning how to read. Have any of you had children with speech delays that had no trouble learning to read or is it likely he will have trouble? I'm just really worried about him. Will he talk? Will he read? .

 

My ds8 was nonverbal at 3 and condiered to have speech delays severe enough to go to a special needs preschool (that lasted all of 2 weeks). His speech is now normal but it did set his other language skills back in accordance with his speech. So his other language skills are 2 years behind. He is making steady progress but delayed, so now at 8.5 hw is just doing cvc and cvcc words, a few sight words and nothing is really fluent just yet. Eventually like his speech he will normalize and be caught up to his peers, but at this point he has followed the some delay in speech/language right from the start. Being delayed in reading is really not a big deal. I know on here we stress it a lot and a lot of the curric choices for 2nd or 3rd grade are based on the child reading. I just modify our curriculum. He understands language but can not read it well or write it much at all.

 

We will be doing further testing soon to see if he has other LD around language skills (reading and writing) but a delay in reading in a few years I would not worry about until you are at that point with him. Just focus on the speech part and don't borrow trouble from the future kwim

[swellmomma]

This hasn't been my experience. I don't think my son was ready to learn to read until he turned 11.

 

Two of my girls were also late readers (2nd - 3rd grade) but they didn't have speech problems. My oldest DD was beginning to read at four.

 

 

:iagree: My oldest with multiple LD but not speech issues was closer to 7 before he is fluent and comprehension at 13 is still an issue. My 8 yr old is still in those beginning stages of sounding out words, a few basic sight words (like the) and no fluency what so ever. Now that we have started assessments we see just how complex his learning issues are. Being non-verbal at 3 and needed almost 4 years of daily speech therapy to get that up to normal ranges before he could even make sense of the sounds letter make to begin learning to read. That put his at age 7 before he could even put the sound to the letter (and sometimes he still struggles with it).

 

Kids learn to read when they are developmentally ready for it. I would not even say most boys are ready by age 5 even if they were NT and not struggling with LD. Girls are more likely to be ready that early imo I would say most LD kids are NOT ready to learn to read at age 5. The more severe the LD the later until they are developmentally ready to learn it. jmo of course