When does a speech delay be considered a disorder?

pinklisa2010

This discussion was created from comments split from: I'm Chris, I specialise in working with children with autism, asperger's and learning disabilities.

pinklisa2010

Hi Chris
My son is 3 1/2 he has global development delay,SPD, low muscle tone, feeding issues hypermobile, reflux and asthma, he does not say any words, he does babble and is starting to make animal noises like roaring but his main communication is through his behaviour shouting pointing and grunting, he can use makaton but he signs the wrong way round, and can use PECs though his main motivation is snacks but its a start. I want to ask you two questions
1) when does a speech delay be considered a disorder and
2) How can i get more training for Makaton signing as i want to expand what i can sign to him Mr Tubble has helped us loads
Thank you

LondonSpeechTherapy

Dear pinklisa2010,

Sorry for the late reply as I have been on leave. Have a look at the Makaton webite as they organise courses and have sign vocab books abd DVDs for you to learn from. Also, check with your local SLT team or special school as they may be running some courses too. For a description of the Delay Vs Disorder debate have a look at: http://www.speech-language-development.com/language-disorder.html. I really hope that helps. Chris