Information : list of traits in bright late talking children discussed in Thomas Sowell's book. I want to credit the quotes below to Thomas Sowell in his book , and that these similar Traits are found in Dr Camarata's studies .
1. Outstanding and precocious analytical and/or musical abilities
2.Outstanding memories
3.Strong wills
4. Highly selective interests,leading to unusual achievements in some areas and disinterest and ineptness in others
5.Delayed Toilet Training
6.Precocious ability to read and/or use numbers and/or use computers
7. Close relatives in occupations requiring outstanding analytical and /or musical abilities
8.Unusual concentration and absorption in what they are doing.

A Special Story as an Example of What Our Parents and Children have Experienced :
My son (5.2) as you know didn't say a word until he was 2.5. I
guess I noticed that he was a bit of a late developer when he was
around 20 months. Some of the other kids in our mother and toddler
group were already speaking in sentences (mainly girls), and by the
age of 2 the boys were also talking. I wasn't too concerned at this
stage because I'd taken him to his pediatrician and she said I had
to be patient (she told me the usual, boys talk later than girls
etc. etc). He also had one of those electronic hearing tests at two
and that proved to be fine.

So I continued to talk to him and I prayed every night that he would
say his first word. This word `car' came at around 2.5 (with a
little encouragement). Anyway he didn't really say another word
until he was almost 3. At 3 he could say around 9 words plus he
could count to 10. I felt at this stage that there was nothing
seriously wrong with him (gut instinct I suppose) because he was
playing with educational software packages aimed at 4-5 year olds.
I was amazed. I knew he was smart.

During this time I went through periods where I blamed myself for
his late talking; perhaps I never talked to him enough, or maybe it
was because we were isolated from our families. We are in Europe
and all OJ heard were Dutch and French speaking people, I was the
only native English speaker he heard on a regular basis (his Dad
worked late most evenings). I also thought about possibilities like
vaccinations, dioxins, lead, ultrasound scans. You name it, I
thought of it. I was a paranoid mom. The worst part was when I
used to take him to mother and toddler groups and he was still in
the `grunting' stage. All the other kids were speaking almost
fluently, and I felt embarrassed. I can identify so much with what
many of you talk about with parks, social functions etc. My family
were very supportive (when I returned home) and said I shouldn't
worry, he was just a late developer.

When he was 3.5 I decided to send him to the local International
school. By this stage he was using one, sometimes two word
utterances. I thought he needed contact on a regular basis with
other kids to get him to talk He attended half days for a year.
His teacher was a Belgian and she wasn't very pleasant, she also had
an accent which even I found difficult to understand. What I didn't
like was that she used to compare him with the other kids of his
age. This was the worst year for me. I went through stages of
thinking he would never talk like the others, and I felt depressed
quite a lot. I shed a lot of tears, I can tell you (I'm sure most
of you can identify with this). I felt so alone, like I was the
only mother in the world with a late-talker.

When he was almost 4, I independently called a speech therapist.
I'd searched for a while and she was the only native English
speaking therapist I could find. OJ started receiving speech
therapy when he was 3.11 (he had the expressive speech of a 2 year
old). At this stage he was connecting two words here and there, not
really speaking. His vocabulary however was vast and he knew all of
his alphabet and when asked what begins with `A' . `B' etc, he
would list about 10 things. He could also add simple numbers and he
could count to at least 100.

One of the first things the ST helped him with was his personal
pronouns and prepositions. He mastered these in the next 3-4 months
and then slowly but surely his speech started to develop. In the
following September, he started in Upper Kindergarten (called
Reception over here). His teacher (a Puerto Rican) spoke wonderful
English and I liked her from the start, although at the beginning
she did try and pressurize me into getting him evaluated. Not
wanting him to be labeled (I was still paranoid at this stage), I
refused, and said he needed more time, and that he'd only been
receiving speech therapy for 6 months. I told his teacher that I
may consider it if he wasn't talking at 6.

During this year (4.5 – 5.2) he made the most progress. His teacher
worked wonders with him and even she couldn't believe the change in
him. He learned to read, and reads books now for children well over
a year older than him. He can write & spells words as they sound
when asked (although we have to work still on the size of his
letters which vary from small to large). His speech improved
dramatically during the year. His sentences started to flow a lot
better and during the last 3 months of the academic year, he made
the most strides in his speech. When he's talking you wouldn't
think he was once a late-talker, apart from odd hiccups here and
there. The only area where I can still see that he lags behind his
peers is with sustaining conversations. I think this is perhaps
because he hasn't been speaking as long as the other children. They
have had more practice at this. He's also not the best listener in
the world.

In September he starts 1st grade (they don't hold back kids over
here) and I am confident that by this time next year there'll be
absolutely no difference between him and the other children with
regards to speech.

Sorry this is long-winded, but I wanted to give hope to all those of
you with late-talkers who are going through a difficult patch, and
say that maybe some children just need a bit more time than others.
I look back to just over a year ago and I'm so proud of OJ, and I
feel sometimes that I should have had more faith in him. Perhaps
his brain was mastering other skills and his talking just took a
back seat.

I hope this has helped. Happy 4th of July to all the moms in the
States.

From one of our Special Moms

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