If you didn't learn to speak until later...

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If you didn't learn to speak until later in childhood (or even later) but are now able to speak, how old were you when you became able, and what was it like learning to speak? What did you think about speech? Were you not able to understand it, or just not able to figure out how to do it? Did your thoughts change when you learned to speak?

I'm asking this because I learned at the usual time and can't remember the time when I didn't know how to speak, so I want to know what it's like to be without language, (as in words, not just general communication) and then acquire it.

Can't remember. Had speech therapy when I started due to terrible grammar, pronoun problems and speaking in third person (per my mother). I can remember bits of speech therapy, but only the large hairy mole on the lady's arm that I stared at (little Daniel lacked tact), and that she was also a nice lady too.

4 1/2 over here when I started.

Seriously, I have no recollection of the time I didn't speak, I mean, I didn't put any thought into it at the time (I have memories of items that stand out, but that's about it); I was in my own world. I heard Temple Grandin say that she was frustrated that she couldn't talk; I didn't care at all it seemed (as per my mother).

Well, my mother recounts I said my first words at the standard time, went mute save for some sounds at age two and regained speech at age 4 or thereabouts.

Also, I don't have an accent from either of my parents, nor my relatives or the community writ large. I seem to have my own idiosyncratic accent independent of anyone elses.

I said my first word at 9 months so my parents thought I'd be early. But I didn't speak actual sentences until the age of 5/6. So I started off early but ended up speaking really late.

I said words on time (at 13 months), but remember how it was to not be able to speak because I didn't babble before. I also remember some of how I learnt to speak.

I remember that I was frustrated about not being able to call my mother or make any other sounds to be out of the crib. But then my interaction lacked as a baby so I was only frustrated for a moment and figured out other ways about how to get my way.

The concept of language didn't change my thoughts. Language doesn't feel natural even today.

If anything, it was foreign and confusing, because the whole affair of calling things by a name was funny somehow back then. I knew everything and had a fantastic memory about my environment and what I wanted, so suddenly calling things by names (when they had no such things previously) was confusing. I soon found it was quite fascinating however, because people suddenly understood me. My mom even reports that I learnt lots of words very fast after saying my first.

I think that since I learnt English by a form of echolalia (repeating without understanding until it all made sense) naturally in only a few weeks that I might have learnt German similarly. But I do not know that, because I wasn't all too concious of the process of how I learnt as a toddler (as about every toddler I imagine)

I only learned to speak at the age of 5. Prior to that, I could not speak any comprehensible words, and tend to point at objects.

When I did learn to speak, the only language I learned (and was trained to learn by my benefactor) was English, which was weird because I'm a Filipino. I only learned to speak my native language fluently by the age of 12.

First spoke at age two, which is somewhat late statistically, but not radically so.
Spoke immediately in complete sentences, which would indicate that I'd been listening and understanding for quite some time, but didn't start using language until I was confident that I knew how it was supposed to work.

I think it is important to introduce non-verbal children to text. Here's why.

I am diagnosed Asperger's because I spoke on time. The "communication" aspect of speech escaped me until I was between three and four years old and first understood what printed words were. Before that, it was mostly me saying the phrases that I knew were expected in certain situations, following the patterns of speech like I followed all the other patterns in the world. When I learned to read, I started using speech creatively and originally instead of in a formulaic manner, to say things I was thinking and feeling and wanting instead of just having tantrums when the world wasn't right (of course, I did keep having tantrums until I was in my late teens... there are other reasons for meltdowns than wanting and not being able to say it). I imagine typical children go through this in a less dramatic manner, as they learn to communicate their desires around age two, and speech stops being a game and starts being communication.

My memory dates back to age two and a half. At that point, I had some idea what words meant, and had limited ability to use them functionally, if I was in the right situation to do so. I also repeated things that were said to me, and sang songs that my mom had sung to me. The idea of words-as-concepts came later than the idea of speech-as-action though.

This is yet another reason why I think Asperger's autism and speech-delayed autism are not so different.

Printed words are just so much easier to understand. They're right there, on the page, not the here-and-gone you get with speech and have to try to capture and filter out before you forget what it sounded like. Print just gives you the idea that words have independent meanings of their own, whether or not you are in the right situation. They're tools you can use anytime, anywhere, just sitting there being the same word no matter what people are doing or where you are. That's an important concept. Words have independent meanings; they're not just embedded in their contexts.

I remember having a thought that I had no words for, and it terrified me. My thoughts were tactile, I could feel their shape, if that makes sense. In this case, I had a sense of some great weight looking at me from above, and this great weight was everywhere at once, and could see everything, but also all of it was bearing down on me in particular, and looking only at me, and it was in, and beneath me as well.

Since I've aquired language I would say that I was thinking about God being omnipresent and omniscient, but obviously at the time I had no means to tell anyone what was going on in my head, or why I was so frightened.

My Mom said I could say a few words at 18 months.
I didn't really start talking until about 6 yrs. I was shy. I had older sisters who talked for me.
I had speech theraphy up until about 6 grade?
I still can't sometimes say my TH's to this day.

I don't really remember. I remember being little but I don't remember any difference in not talking. I didn't know any difference. I could understand a word people were saying but that didn't mean I knew what they were talking about or understood what they meant and I don't remember speech therapy. I remember it from maybe six and up when a speech therapist come to our class. I've always liked speech therapy until 6th grade and I didn't like the way the new speech therapist taught it.

My mom also said I was very frustrated as a child when I couldn't talk but I don't remember. I was four when I started talking she says and I didn't start talking correctly until I was six. I think I was speaking single words at age four and then sentences at age five and repeating everything. But I said single words at age two and three. But I can remember being frustrated at one time when I was five. I was in Wisconsin at my grandparents and I take this lock off the storage shed and it locks and I couldn't put it back on so I tossed it in the garden because I couldn't get the thing back out to put back on the shed. Later in the day my grandparents ask me where the lock is and I didn't answer because I didn't know what they were talking about and they tell me the lock that was on the barn in the backyard and I say it's in the garden. they look out there and they still ask me where the lock is and I remember trying to get it for them but the lock wasn't there for some reason. So I say it's lost and they tell me it's not lost and they keep asking me where the lock is. I kept telling them it's lost but they said it wasn't. If it's not lost, then why wasn't it in the water melon bush where the lock landed? So I try avoiding them all afternoon and my grandparents kept asking me "Beth where is the lock?" I couldn't even tell them the whole story about how I couldn't get it back on so I tossed it in the garden and it landed in the water melon bush. So I kept saying "it's lost" and they kept saying it was not and I couldn't understand how can it not be lost if I can't find it? Then they gave up and my baby cousin was saying "bad Beth." Then the next fall my grandfather finds it as he is working in the garden and it was all rusted. Then when I was 11 I was finally able to tell the whole story when my grandmother brought it up.

My son, who is now eighteen (egads, I'm getting old!! !! !! !), was walking by ten months. However, although he was obviously very intelligent and although he could understand what was being said to him, he didn't really start talking in a way that made sense until he was a little past his second birthday. He didn't even call me and my parents (we lived with them) anything until he was over two years old. That should have been one of our first clues.

Other than the usual aspie speech difficulties many aspies encounter (talking too loudly, talking in a monotone, talking out of turn with the flow of conversation, misunderstanding social speech cues, etc., etc.), he hasn't had any other problems with speech or talking. In fact, verbally, he's quite adept.

I'm not positive, but I think I was around 3 when I started talking, and it wasn't just in words. I went from nothing straight to phrases and sentences.

My son did the same thing. The first thing he ever said was "I put it in my pocket" (with some strange accent), but he never really did the whole "dada" "mama" thing... mostly just grunted about things for a long time then all of a sudden said it. From then on out it was always an easy phrase to understand or a full sentence. Well, I should say stuff that was easy for me to understand, not always for others.

My daughter started talking at normal time, but her speech has not improved. She still talks clearly enough to be understood most of the time by me and people close to her, but others are often oblivious to what she is saying-she's going on 5 now. I'm thinkin about getting her checked out.

The experiences of your son as described in your latter paragraph closely mirrors my own experiences. I have often been told that I talk at too high a volume, I am quasi-monotonous and I have, to this day, difficulty ascertaining when someone has finished speaking and that I am due to respond to their queries and comments.

I also remember as a young child (circa age 6) being told that I spoke in a rapid fashion. My vocabulary is satisfactory. My 10th grade English teacher even commended me with possessing a mastery of English reminiscent of that of a post-graduate university student. As I recall at the time, her comment was prompted by my use of the word genre; a word that was alien to all of my classmates.