[china2396]

My wife and i adopted our son from china 8 monthsago.he is now 3 years 8months.He was born with a cleft lip and palate and also possible hearing loss.Initial reports said he spoke very little chinese and only the people around him alot understood him.We took him to the children s hospital of philadelphia for an evaluation.They said he was delayed about three to six months cognitivly and motor.He had several hearing tests but couldnt determine what he was hearing or not do to his lack of language.The hospital put tubes in his ears and finally about 2 months ago it was determined he had permanent moderate hearing loss.he was fitted for hearing aids in both ears about a month and a half ago.I should have said he has been in speech therapy since january.he also goes to our school district special dept for speech therapist.he goes to therapy about 3 days aweek.Our problem that we see is he has severe articulation,he does have avocabulary of 150-200 words.my wife and i understand him pretty well about 80 percent of the time but if you were to put him in front of another person you wouldnt be able to understand him.he doeas talk in sentences and basically understands us.one of the pathologists thinks he just needs time to learn and grasp the language the other pathologist thinks he might be have apraxia.he just had his 6 month revaluation and has caught up both cognitvly and motor for his age.He also toe walks since day one.the doctors suggested to due an mri to test for possible nerologiacal problems with his speech.Some people i have spoken to feel it takes about a kid his age around a year to get caught up language wise with no special needs.I should also add his cleft and palate were repaired in china cleft lip at 15months and palate at 20 months.For the first 6 months he was in orphanage and then the next to and half years he was in foster care.He adusted to my wife and i rather quickly.were just concerned with his speech.He will to start preschool in sept.We feel it might help his language being around other kids.He wont start kindergarten till 2009 so we feel that is to his benefit.our doctor did suggest we also teach him sign language to compliment him learning the language.Has anyone experienced something like this?Any help would be appreciated.

[linda512]

Did he see a plastic surgeon about the cleft palate? If it is not closed completely, it can greatly affect speech patterns- kids can sound nasal and be hard to understand.
Good luck!

[Matushka]

It sounds like your little guy has made a lot of progress considering all the issues he has had to overcome. Each one, cleft palate, ESL and hearing loss are enough to create an articulation delay and he has all three! It is great that he is getting so much speech therapy. He has not had his hearing aids for very long so keep in mind that he has not been hearing all the sounds in words, particularly the consonant sounds. He will have to learn to hear and discriminate them before he can pronounce them. It sounds as though your son has some competent therapists available to him; take advantage of their advice. Ask them lots of questions when you have them. Even if he does have apraxia, the therapy they are doing is exactly what he needs. No matter what, it will take lots of practice, practice, practice. Please keep us posted on how he's progressing.

[StacyKelly2]

I think it may be a good idea to learn the sign language, it can't hurt. I know sign language because my aunt is deaf. Children tend to learn sign language pretty quickly. Just be careful he does not learn to sign and uses that to stop his speech. I am sure you can find something over the internet which will show you the actual alphabet in sign language. Using this chart will help all of you get acquainted with signs. Of course, this will just be finger spelling..there are some websites that will actually show you the sign -You just put in the word and the sign will come up. Check in your area for classes if need be. I would work with him as much as possible learning both speech and sign.

[Barksum]

We like the 'Signing Time' videos. They show them on our local PBS station, too.

Our son with speech delay used sign and it didn't slow his speech development down any. We also spoke and signed simultaneously and encouraged him to do the same. Since your Ds is speaking in sentences and understands you, and has a pretty large vocabulary, signing might help him to be understood more easily with less frustration - as long as you do both spoken and signed speech.