We first noticed S had challenges when she turned 3. She wasn’t saying things other children of the same age did, but would come up with different ways of communicating instead. We had a lot of pictures, sign language, describing things, or writing things down. S has always enjoyed writing and drawing, and she has an amazing imagination, so would always come up with creative ways to let us know what she wanted when she could not vocalise those thoughts.
It took us just under 5 years to finally receive a diagnosis of DLD. For the majority of that time, we kept hitting dead ends, as apart from ruling other things out, no one seemed able or willing to give her an in-depth language evaluation because of her young age, despite us asking for one. We suspected DLD for a while, after taking it upon ourselves to try and find out what it might be by looking up symptoms online. I do feel like we were ignored by some in the early stages, and wonder how it could have helped us if we had been given a diagnosis earlier on, and then we could have been offered the right kind of support. These challenges with language impacted our lives on a daily basis, as she is such a smart little thing she was well aware of what she was not able to do, which caused lots of tears, both from her and me! As a mum it broke my heart to see how much she wanted to say something, but knowing she wasn’t able to get the words from her head out of her mouth.
When I first came across the RADLD website it felt almost like a cloud had lifted, as I could see that there was an answer, and I could see that I wasn’t alone. Seeing that there are organisations such as this which are researching DLD is so reassuring, as in the early years of our journey we met so many people who haven’t heard of it, despite being SLPs. I feel it is so important for people in this profession to be aware of it, instead of passing language difficulties off as other spectrum disorders.
I want to put our story out there to show others that you’re not alone, and even though it can seem like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders, especially when dealing with little ones with DLD, or suspected DLD, do not give up. Keep going, help and support are out there. I wish I’d found other stories like this when I was first searching for answers. My mental health has suffered because of our journey, but now that we’ve been given this diagnosis I’m trying to learn as much about it as I possibly can to be the best advocate for my daughter that I can be. Watching her persevere through the tough times has shown me how brave she is, which shows me if she can keep going then so can I.
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