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I see you're in the UK. I would suggest going to the child's GP, raise your concerns about speech and language delay and ask for a referral to speech and langua

I see you're in the UK. I would suggest going to the child's GP, raise your concerns about speech and language delay and ask for a referral to speech and language therapy. If you have other concerns, raise them with your GP as well and you may get other referrals. You'll have to have the child's guardian involved obviously, and depending on procedures, there may be a visit from a social worker to get a sense of the child's needs. That might sound scary but it isn't really. [Note: I live in Ireland but the process is very similar to the best of my knowledge] Your role here is as a de-facto parent. You clearly care about the boy and you should focus on that - you have a huge role to play, but you are not a language therapist/child psychologist/occupational therapist. Your job is to get the little guy the services he needs and be prepared to be stubborn and insistent that he gets them. And there will be lots of "homework" to do that will keep you busy once you get that. Early intervention is key, so getting into the system and getting access to the necessary services is your top priority. Accept any and every appointment that comes your way. Also, you need to be in it for the long haul - my experience is that it's a case of incremental progress over long periods rather than giant leaps. You may at some point feel that this is over the the top, or that his issues aren't that bad compared to other kids that you encounter. Forget that thought immediately. Like others here, I would not generally suggest looking for hacks. But one thing that really works is probably something you're doing already - playing. Let the child lead, talk constantly to describe what they are doing and occasionally ask questions. That's a very basic description that should get you going, and once you get access to the services you need, you may be able to find out more (some sort of parenting course for kids with needs is usually part of the process). Finally, just keep doing what you're doing, but also look out for yourself in all this. Good luck!

VLM 13y ago
"Your job is to get the little guy the services he needs and be prepared to be stubborn and insistent that he gets them." My personal experience is the entire medical community seems to have an avoidance issue WRT food allergies. Oh who knows some kids are just like that. Thats just how some kids are, why don't you wait and see if he catches up. I'm sure that's not the case. Well some kids just develop at a different rate mentally and physically than others. They'd rather MRI my son for suspected stomach cancer than test for allergy antibodies (or was it just xray? It was awhile ago). Seriously. They had us all in suspected cancer mode before they broke down and tried allergy testing. Eventually, after much arguing, the pediatrician ordered a blood test, referred him to a gastroenterologist, who did some crazy stomach wall tissue biopsy after draining about a quart for innumerable blood tests, and finally, they're like "yeah, he's severely allergic to gluten per both biopsy and blood tests, so stop eating that". And casein and soy. I found it remarkable how hard you have to push to get tests done for a diagnosis like that. I believe in for profit industry, follow the money. The worst medical scenario for the patient or the parents is probably cancer or something awful like that. The worst medical scenario for the doctors and adminstrators is an illness that is treated by a "simple" diet change and requires no expensive pills, no expensive followups, no expensive surgery, diagnosis wasn't too expensive other than the tissue biopsy work... that's why you have to fight fight fight to even get tested because that diagnosis is a nightmare scenario for the docs. The point of all this is his development rate skyrocketed once we got him proper food, and he's pretty near caught up to his peers, which is cool. So you'll have to fight extremely hard to test for food allergies, but it might (or might not) pay off. (edited to add there may be other financial nightmare scenarios for doctors which are hard to get tested. Hmm, how about vision testing? Can't learn to read if you can't see the page, but if you can avoid getting the kid glasses you can milk that cow for money for a long time WRT special needs reading classes and such. My daughter had that problem.)
- equalsione 13y ago
  This is a very good point. Our guy turned out to have similar food allergies. The soy one is a nightmare, because soy and soy derivatives seem to be in just about everything. But if he does have any allergies, there are lots of alternatives and a dietician would be able to help. Also OP, the other test I would recommend (though hopefully, the team you're dealing with will do it as more or less a first step) is a hearing test. He may have glue-ear or similar common childhood hearing issues without showing any symptoms (i.e. earache). Even a small percentage drop in hearing at that age can have an impact. And if the poor guy does have food allergies as mentioned, that would exacerbate the problem (basically, hay-fever like symptoms causing his nose to become blocked and therefore his ears). By the way, these may sound like a really big deal but they are not. All this things are easily fixable. They're also incredibly common.
  - VLM 13y ago
    "just about everything." Yeah tell me about it, I've been living it for about half a decade and its in almost everything heavily processed. In the "real food" aisles, other than raw soybeans and tofu and some soy "milks" (and soy milk is getting pretty far away from "real food") its pretty easy to avoid soy. If it comes in a box and/or maybe a bag its nearly impossible to avoid soy, wheat, or casein (milk). Which leads to "hmm, sounds like we're about to live the Paleo diet" which at least on HN leads to ridiculous responses against it, about God intelligently designing us to evolve over the last couple decades to live exclusively on "hot pockets", candy bars, and high fructose corn syrup and cooking at home should be illegal and/or only for rich people and/or only for poor people or perhaps both at the same time but definitely not for us, therefore trying to avoid junk food is a religious sin and ethically immoral and anti-american and everyone should eat as much fake food as possible, err, and well lets ignore the allergy people they can just go curl up and die somewhere. Ah, paraphrasing a bit from a slightly biased perspective. Lets just say my family eats a heck of a lot of salads with a side of a little roasted, baked, steamed, or grilled meat. Last night was big spinach salad with some kinda vinaigrette and (admittedly non-paleo) sliced seasoned baked potatoes (I think dill and rosemary?) and some overly spicy bbq flavored homemade baked chicken. Want to cut back on meat consumption? Spice the heck out of it till you can't stomach more than a couple oz. You can eat paleo pretty cheaply and healthily if you want, or you can use it as an "excuse" to eat nothing but 32 oz of grilled beef tenderloin each night and then complain.

VLM 13y ago

"Your job is to get the little guy the services he needs and be prepared to be stubborn and insistent that he gets them." My personal experience is the entire medical community seems to have an avoidance issue WRT food allergies. Oh who knows some kids are just like that. Thats just how some kids are, why don't you wait and see if he catches up. I'm sure that's not the case. Well some kids just develop at a different rate mentally and physically than others. They'd rather MRI my son for suspected stomach cancer than test for allergy antibodies (or was it just xray? It was awhile ago). Seriously. They had us all in suspected cancer mode before they broke down and tried allergy testing. Eventually, after much arguing, the pediatrician ordered a blood test, referred him to a gastroenterologist, who did some crazy stomach wall tissue biopsy after draining about a quart for innumerable blood tests, and finally, they're like "yeah, he's severely allergic to gluten per both biopsy and blood tests, so stop eating that". And casein and soy. I found it remarkable how hard you have to push to get tests done for a diagnosis like that. I believe in for profit industry, follow the money. The worst medical scenario for the patient or the parents is probably cancer or something awful like that. The worst medical scenario for the doctors and adminstrators is an illness that is treated by a "simple" diet change and requires no expensive pills, no expensive followups, no expensive surgery, diagnosis wasn't too expensive other than the tissue biopsy work... that's why you have to fight fight fight to even get tested because that diagnosis is a nightmare scenario for the docs. The point of all this is his development rate skyrocketed once we got him proper food, and he's pretty near caught up to his peers, which is cool. So you'll have to fight extremely hard to test for food allergies, but it might (or might not) pay off. (edited to add there may be other financial nightmare scenarios for doctors which are hard to get tested. Hmm, how about vision testing? Can't learn to read if you can't see the page, but if you can avoid getting the kid glasses you can milk that cow for money for a long time WRT special needs reading classes and such. My daughter had that problem.)

equalsione 13y ago
This is a very good point. Our guy turned out to have similar food allergies. The soy one is a nightmare, because soy and soy derivatives seem to be in just about everything. But if he does have any allergies, there are lots of alternatives and a dietician would be able to help. Also OP, the other test I would recommend (though hopefully, the team you're dealing with will do it as more or less a first step) is a hearing test. He may have glue-ear or similar common childhood hearing issues without showing any symptoms (i.e. earache). Even a small percentage drop in hearing at that age can have an impact. And if the poor guy does have food allergies as mentioned, that would exacerbate the problem (basically, hay-fever like symptoms causing his nose to become blocked and therefore his ears). By the way, these may sound like a really big deal but they are not. All this things are easily fixable. They're also incredibly common.
- VLM 13y ago
  "just about everything." Yeah tell me about it, I've been living it for about half a decade and its in almost everything heavily processed. In the "real food" aisles, other than raw soybeans and tofu and some soy "milks" (and soy milk is getting pretty far away from "real food") its pretty easy to avoid soy. If it comes in a box and/or maybe a bag its nearly impossible to avoid soy, wheat, or casein (milk). Which leads to "hmm, sounds like we're about to live the Paleo diet" which at least on HN leads to ridiculous responses against it, about God intelligently designing us to evolve over the last couple decades to live exclusively on "hot pockets", candy bars, and high fructose corn syrup and cooking at home should be illegal and/or only for rich people and/or only for poor people or perhaps both at the same time but definitely not for us, therefore trying to avoid junk food is a religious sin and ethically immoral and anti-american and everyone should eat as much fake food as possible, err, and well lets ignore the allergy people they can just go curl up and die somewhere. Ah, paraphrasing a bit from a slightly biased perspective. Lets just say my family eats a heck of a lot of salads with a side of a little roasted, baked, steamed, or grilled meat. Last night was big spinach salad with some kinda vinaigrette and (admittedly non-paleo) sliced seasoned baked potatoes (I think dill and rosemary?) and some overly spicy bbq flavored homemade baked chicken. Want to cut back on meat consumption? Spice the heck out of it till you can't stomach more than a couple oz. You can eat paleo pretty cheaply and healthily if you want, or you can use it as an "excuse" to eat nothing but 32 oz of grilled beef tenderloin each night and then complain.