Late talking child, non verbal at 2 years old, finally talks before 3.

Hello this is my son, he's 2 yr 10 months when the video was taken. He's a late talker. I posted this video to encourage other parents with late talkers not to give up.

He was born a month and half early and weighed 2.66kgs. He grew quite fast, very healthy and extremely smart too. He said mommy when he was 7 months and many other words until he was 14 months old. Then, almost overnight he regressed.

We suspect vaccinations. 2 Complex vaccinations at the same time. He came home with a fever and stopped talking almost immediately. No eye contact and living in his own world. We thought he was just going through a short phase but it just got worse. Less babbling and not interested to communicate.

But his learning skills has never changed. He learns very fast e.g : he knew his alphabets at 17 months old and by 19 months old, he knew all upper case and lower case and numbers up to 20. Only problem was that he was not saying it. It was a nightmare for me and I tried so many things to get his eye contact back. I've done a tremendous amount of internet research and the word 'autism' kept appearing in all the articles. I'm a mother and I know my child well. I believe he's a very normal, healthy, happy and very smart little boy. I brought him to do an ear test before he turned 2 and it was normal. Brought him to two speech therapists and both said I should get him evaluated by a professional child psychologist. But, I refused to get him evaluated at the beginning. I sent eventually to several specialists and he was diagnosed as late talker by those specialists.

He's a very happy child who loves to play games. Yes he has quirks here and there but even my friends' kids (who are very normal) have lots of quirks. He tip toes a lot. But he has flat feet. He flapped his arms when he gets excited watching Sesame Street on tv, but he didn't do it all the time. He doesn't have tantrums or meltdowns, ever! He's basically a very busy guy. But a very happy one. I read lots of books and articles from Internet, and worked very hard, desperately looking for clues to help him.

Some people suggested that I should send him to school where he can pick up language from his friends and teachers. At the beginning, I did consider it but my instinct says no. I'd rather do it and work on it and I believe I can do it as I'm a full time housewife. I had break downs once in a while but I got back on track pretty quickly. He was still NON-VERBAL up until 26 months. We drove to Singapore (we currently living in Kuala Lumpur) to get his supplements. Together with his supplements and lots and lots of activities lined up for him at home, we are also very careful with his diet as he's a very picky eater.

He couldn't chew foods. So we figured his tongue didn't develop enough muscles to say words because of this. We introduced him to many types of foods but fruits work best for him especially grapes. The speech therapist did mention that my son had displayed several symptoms of Apraxia. A month later at 27 months old, words finally came out of his month. And he not stopped since.

As you see in the video, I tried to teach him some French. Actually none of us could speak French. My hubby is a New Zealander and I'm a Malaysian. My son loves to learn foreign language. He likes to go into YouTube and listen to French kid programs. One day, a few months ago, we were surprised: We found him sitting alone in the living room counting 1 - 10, in 'FRENCH'. He knows his animals, shapes, colours, alphabets and objects in French. Now we too have to learn French! What I was doing in the video was to trying to teach him to say the English translation of the words because he always makes the sound rather than saying the name of the animal. It's also difficult to video him as he'd get distracted the moment when he sees the phone in front of him. Hence, him saying 'I want phone' a lot and mommy's voice too sounded pushy! :) He's usually way better and more cooperative than he was in the video. Oh, he also said his full name in the video - Hamzah Johannes ;) He's going to be 3 soon and already speaking 2 to 3 word sentences, he knows his numbers to 100 and learns to spell.

To all the parents out there, I know how heartbroken you are to see other kids talking but not yours. Please don't give up. Work on it. Play play play, love them, have fun and enjoy them. And pray.... Sometimes googling about it will make you feel even worse. Read these books - "Late-Talking Children" and "The Einstein Syndrome" both by Thomas Sowell. Also this one "Late Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage" by Stephen M. Camarata. By the way, he's a very happy normal child now. No more hand flapping. He tip toes once in a while and that's it. As you can hear, we still have to work on his pronunciations. But he has come a long way in the last 6-7 months. Right from a non verbal to a chatter box.

Видео Late talking child, non verbal at 2 years old, finally talks before 3. канала Hamzah Johannes Hattingh