The Late Talker

[Guest guest]

I read the entire book last nite and I thought it was really good the best one I

have seen and easily understood for parents.I will pass it along to other

parents.On the list of symptons for apaxia I checked them and Mic has all but

one and thats because he just started to try and talk.I am discouraged though we

have everything that goes along with apraxia downsyndrome autism hypotonia DSI

etc.I am happy Mic is finally tring to communicate but I am hearing frustration

and that worries me.Frustration causes agression in Mic hes started pulling hair

at school.I have no clue where he learned that he used to pull my hair but not

for an particular reason now I think it might be on purpose.I just wanted to let

you know how good I thought this book is.Thanks Laurie

[Guest guest]

My son too reacts with hair pulling and hitting when he gets

frustrated or doesn't get what he wants. For months I didn't

discipline him because I thought his apraxia was the cause and I

didn't want to upset my little boy who already had enough going on in

his life. Finally, I came to my senses. He was being two. We also

believe that hitting is unacceptable but it was so hard for us to

apply that rule to our son. I am so glad now that we finally did. He

needed to understand the boundries of unacceptable behaviour - if we

never thought him that, than we wouldn't have been fair to him. And

guess what - he figured it out with our help. He still has his

outbursts of hitting and I hear his older sister screaming - " he's

tearing my hair " but what 2-3 year old doesn't do that. He has gained

self control and is able to calm himself down when he gets upset.

We've gone from 2 to 3 1hr tantrums a day to an occasional outburst.

When he does hit or tear hair, I give him the stiff eye and he signs

sorry and offers a hug. The key was consistency and lots of love.

> Hi Lauri and welcome!

>

> Thanks for your kinds words about the book I co authored with

> Tanner's neurodevelopmental pediatrician Marilyn Agin MD, and

> International journalist Malcolm Nicholl. The Late Talker is a

hard

> book for me to read myself because you all have no idea how much I

> wish I could switch places and be the one that could have read it

and

> learned from it early to help Tanner way back then vs. being the

one that had to learn it myself

> the hard way wasting valuable time for Tanner. As you may notice

I'm kind of used to it by now when

> it comes to Tanner as he grows older! (see school age post)

>

> About hair pulling. You may be new to the group but I always like

> to remind people that many of the problems we look at as abnormal -

> are perfectly normal developmentally. In addition -since some of

> our children may have global delays developmentally -don't be

> surprised when they go through a stage a bit later than others do.

> Like hair pulling. It is a problem that many parents deal with.

My

> husband Glenn and I are both from the school of thought that speech

> impairment or no speech impairment -some forms of " communication "

> are unacceptable. Hurting others/hair pulling -was one of them.

>

> Here is an article on why children may pull hair

> " Yanking on hair, like kicking, biting, pinching, and hitting, is

> one of the ways toddlers express themselves and try to exert

control

> over their immediate environment. Mark W. , professor of

> clinical psychology at Idaho State University, says there are three

> main reasons for this behavior. For young toddlers (12 to 18

> months), the most likely explanation is the simplest one: They've

> discovered how to get a reaction, and they want to get it

> again. " It's like turning on a light switch, or hitting one of

those

> toys where something pops up, " says. " They pull, big

brother

> squeals. This is fun. " Another reason toddlers pull hair,

> says, is " to make bad things go away. Someone's crawling over them

> or taking their toys; they reach out and pull hair, and the bad

> thing stops. " Finally, says, older toddlers (2 to 3) are

> developing the cognitive skills to reason things out, and may pull

> hair to try to control the direction of a situation. "

> http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/toddler/toddlerbehavior/11553.html

>

> And yes you are correct -for our kids there would be four reasons -

> and... number one would probably be frustration! (also known as

> Chapter nine!)

>

> =====

>

[Guest guest]

I try very hard, as I imagine we all do, not to " baby " and over

compensate for our children's weaknesses.

What I realize about Callie is that she is very smart, her receptive

language skiils are far ahead of her age. She knows, in most cases,

that what she is doing / not doing is wrong. What she does is hit,

mostly objects. She will haul off & hit the chair so hard she will

then look at her hand & start to cry. She will also throw things

across the room, again, totally out of frustration. If she had her

words, I still think she would be doing this. Sort of a rite of

passage.

My personal opinion is that acting out, if it's hair pulling,

hitting, biting, pinching, etc.. is somewhat " normal " doesn't make

it right & in our family that behavior does not fly, but all my

friends kids had similar issues.

She gets a time out for those outbursts, just like she would if she

were verbal. I do take into consideration if her outburst is out of

frustration over not being understood, 99 % of the time, that is not

that case, it's being told no, or it's time to go to bed, dvd off

etc...

Just my 2 cents.

> > Hi Lauri and welcome!

> >

> > Thanks for your kinds words about the book I co authored with

> > Tanner's neurodevelopmental pediatrician Marilyn Agin MD, and

> > International journalist Malcolm Nicholl. The Late Talker is a

> hard

> > book for me to read myself because you all have no idea how much

I

> > wish I could switch places and be the one that could have read it

> and

> > learned from it early to help Tanner way back then vs. being the

> one that had to learn it myself

> > the hard way wasting valuable time for Tanner. As you may notice

> I'm kind of used to it by now when

> > it comes to Tanner as he grows older! (see school age post)

> >

> > About hair pulling. You may be new to the group but I always

like

> > to remind people that many of the problems we look at as

abnormal -

> > are perfectly normal developmentally. In addition -since some of

> > our children may have global delays developmentally -don't be

> > surprised when they go through a stage a bit later than others

do.

> > Like hair pulling. It is a problem that many parents deal with.

> My

> > husband Glenn and I are both from the school of thought that

speech

> > impairment or no speech impairment -some forms of " communication "

> > are unacceptable. Hurting others/hair pulling -was one of them.

> >

> > Here is an article on why children may pull hair

> > " Yanking on hair, like kicking, biting, pinching, and hitting, is

> > one of the ways toddlers express themselves and try to exert

> control

> > over their immediate environment. Mark W. , professor of

> > clinical psychology at Idaho State University, says there are

three

> > main reasons for this behavior. For young toddlers (12 to 18

> > months), the most likely explanation is the simplest one: They've

> > discovered how to get a reaction, and they want to get it

> > again. " It's like turning on a light switch, or hitting one of

> those

> > toys where something pops up, " says. " They pull, big

> brother

> > squeals. This is fun. " Another reason toddlers pull hair,

> > says, is " to make bad things go away. Someone's crawling over

them

> > or taking their toys; they reach out and pull hair, and the bad

> > thing stops. " Finally, says, older toddlers (2 to 3) are

> > developing the cognitive skills to reason things out, and may

pull

> > hair to try to control the direction of a situation. "

> >

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/toddler/toddlerbehavior/11553.html

> >

> > And yes you are correct -for our kids there would be four

reasons -

> > and... number one would probably be frustration! (also known as

> > Chapter nine!)

> >

> > =====

> >