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Hello Ladies! I am looking for input about beginning Little Hands with my toddler who has been "diagnosed" with a significant speech delay. He is 2 and says NOTHING. His hearing eval was nearly perfect; he hears and obeys. We work daily with his speech skills, but get nothing. He does communicate through sign language, but nothing verbal.

My dh and I are praying and talking about whether or not we should begin LH with ds. I have two 10 year olds already at home using HOD....am wondering...?? Will structure help or hinder? Should we just wait another year??

Thanks for any insight you may have!

I would wait. Speech delay is very normal. I have a few close friends whose children were speech delayed (the children were close to 3 or past 3 when they started to talk...very bright kids. We started to use LHTH this past year with our 3 year old DS. We only did about 1/3 of it. Now this next year we plan to complete it. He will be turning 4 in a couple of months. I would provide your child with hands-on-activities....like a sink full of water and bubbles with cups and funnels, stickers, large beads to bead on straws, etc... We used Tot School Tot Tray activities (you can google it...it is free) to get ideas...it worked wonders to make him feel he was doing something like the older kids and helped to occupy him for some time while I worked with the other children.

My heart goes out to you. My oldest ds was hardly speaking at 2 yo either, in fact, he had not yet said "daddy". It nearly broke my heart. His hearing test did reveal fluid in his ears, but that was only a portion of the problem, as he was born very premature and just did not hit those milestones of development like other dc his age did. As the pp said, it's not so uncommon for 2 yo's to struggle with speech, so I just want to encourage you that it will come with time. However, we did feel like our ds needed extra help that we didn't know how to give. Our state has a "Birth to 3 Connections" program. If a child qualifies (which your ds would), a certified speech therapist comes to your home to work with the child 2-3 times a week, for 45 minutes sessions at a time. We had a wonderful lady (who I know was an answer to prayer), that was our ds's speech therapist. My sister had 1 ds that needed speech as well, and her ds also did the Birth to 3... program. It was free, too! But I had gotten to the point where I would have paid even if it wasn't. Even just hearing how the speech therapist spoke to our ds, in a repetitive manner, stressing things in a certain way, was very helpful to me to do with him as well in the day to day. She taught him "dad' first. You may want to ask your family doctor if your state has this program or one like it. As far as LHTH, if your heart is really leading you to be doing something with him now (as I know mine was when I was in that situation), you could start it, maybe half-speed, and just see how it goes. There would be no harm in that, as you could always set it aside to save for later if you wanted. Here is a link where I described how we are going about doing LHTH half-speed in our home:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5600&p=41232#p41232

Our ds who had speech therapy for 2 years is now almost 11 yo and talks and reads like crazy! A person would never guess the struggles he had early on with speech. The only thing he still gets stumped on from time to time is pronouncing long unfamiliar words that don't follow phonics rules (usually names and places). If I model pronouncing them correctly, he can get it right, but it usually takes several tries. Otherwise, no worries! So, be encouraged this is more than likely a stage that will pass!

In Christ,
Julie

Stan had some speech delay.He has CHT-so we were expecting some developmental quirks.He started seeing a speech therapist every couple of months at 2-when he was.largely still just making sounds-and not understandable words.We saw the SALT every couple of months .We started LHTH when he was 2 yrs 9 months.The speech therapist signed him off at 3yrs 5 months..I would think a SALT [=speech and Language therapist ]would be an excellent idea-I know ours helped us alot-giving us ideas and suggestions,never presuurised either of us.Stan is still below normal-but his speech therapist felt he was making significant gains is his language skills and the snowballing would continue.We took ..take...a very relaxed approach to LHTH- sometimes staying on the same week for weeks-depending how much I think he has grasped the concept.Stan loves his LHTH time and so I would say give it a go if thats something you feel called to try out but if your little one is not enjoying it-to leave and wait.

Thank you all for your advice and encouragement. Our county has a program, which has not been helpful...anyway the speech therapist told me that he would need re-evaluated at the end of July. If his speech has not improved (and so far, it has not), they would then begin to see him regularly. She gave me a booklet of ideas to help him. His daddy & I have faithfully done them...with only slight results. The therapist said that she was waiting before deciding to do anything because he has such good language processing skills, demonstrated by his obedience to just about every command she gave him - except, of course, when asked to repeat something .

Will continue praying to see what God has for our little guy. And will check out your ideas! Trusting God for His wisdom in this. Was thinking along the lines of Spidermansmum...taking as much time as necessary to complete each week, instead of following the guide daily. More focused on us having quality time together, working on language development, then on completing everything in a year. Thanks!!

Shelly

I think your little guy would have fun with LHTH, especially if he's understanding well. It would give him special time with mommy and would give him opportunities to learn and grow. Right now we're taking each unit of LHTH over 2 weeks with my 4.5 ds and 2 dd. Even though my 2 yo is very verbal, I still think it's the right pace for her. It will give her a little longer to start learning the ideas and prepare her for LHFHG. So I think it will be great to give it as much time as he needs. You could even repeat activities if you like. Or you could read out of both story Bibles (which we're doing) on separate days to spread it out more. HOD is so great because there are always so many options of how you could do things.