Developmental Delays?

[Nikki2003]

Can celiac cause developmental delays? I thought I read somewhere that it does,But cannot find it now. Nicole is behind in alot of areas. I am just trying to figure out id celiac contributed to it.

Thanks if you know we are trying to get her into pre-k. I don't know if that info would help but it can't hurt.

Thanks

Celina

[jayhawkmom]

I don't have the answer to that question. But, my daughter "seems" to have developmental issues. In fact, we are taking her in for a formal evaluation with our school district next week. She's 5 - and should have started kindergarten this fall. But, due to her size (she's the size of a normal 3 year old) and her health concerns, we decided (with our pediatricians prompting) to hold her back this year...and work with her at home.

She has some fine and gross moter issues - and she just doesn't seem to "get" things that my older child has no problems with at this age. Some of her language development "seems" a bit behind as well. But, we really don't know for sure, which is obviously why we are having her evaluated.

If it turns out that she is delayed in some manner, I will gladly "blame" the gluten.

[Nikki2003]

Can celiac cause developmental delays? I thought I read somewhere that it does,But cannot find it now. Nicole is behind in alot of areas. I am just trying to figure out id celiac contributed to it.

Thanks if you know we are trying to get her into pre-k. I don't know if that info would help but it can't hurt.

Thanks

Celina

forgot to add. 1 of Nicoles speech areas before the diet were at 12-15 months and she was 25 months at the time. Since the diet her last assesment at 33 months was at 23 months which is a huge jump from last time 8 months ago. Don't you think?

Incase you are wondering here is her last assesment noted areas:33 months old

Social/Emotional-27 months

Gross motor-27 months

fine motor-30 months

expressive language-24 months

receptive language-23 months

cognition-26 months

I think the rule in my state is their cognitive has to be behind at least 9-12 months for them to get into pre-k. But to just recieve services from school without pre-k program they have to be at least 9-12 months behind in 2 areas. Which stinks. Because she recieves E.I. and that stops at age 3 and her little play group stops also. I have the baddest feeling when that all stops if she doesn't get in to pre-k she will regress.

Let's hope happy thought. I won't know for about 1-2 weeks if she gets in or not. The school did their own assesment last week. When I go for the meeting we will find out everything.

Celina

[AndreaB]

I think it plays a part but don't have any proof.

My youngest who's only 11 months now seemed to get off to a slow start. I went totally gluten free when he was 6 months old. He took longer to roll over, sit up etc....but once he hit 7 months he was sitting up, crawling at 8-9 months and is starting to walk already.

Don't really know about my oldest two. My second child's speech has gotten much worse but it could be laziness. My daughter is bright but emotionally behind her age. I think gluten affected my youngest the most. We haven't had any testing on him and will only be doing gene testing through enterolab. We know he reacts negatively with gluten and oatmeal.

[taweavmo3]

My dd is developmentally delayed for sure. We had her evaluated through the school system last year, but she only qualified for speech therapy. Her speech was in the 5% range for her age. She ranked at least 18 months behind in most other areas, but she did not qualify for any other help through the school. We live in Texas, and special ed here seems very limited.

We now have her enrolled in regular pre-k that we are paying $200 a month for. We'll have to start paying for speech therapy next year, since the school system stops that at age 5. She is really struggling in pre-k, she is still happy to go, but she truly just doesn't understand everything that the kids are doing. She'll hang back, and watch the other kids, then copy them. She is 4 1/2 and still doesn't know all of her colors, even though we work on them all the time. So, we are almost positive we'll keep her out of kindergarten next year. I'm just hoping she'll be ready by then....her progress has been so slow, even though she's been on the diet now for a year and a half.

I'm really stumped....the ped is saying that this may not even be celiac related now. We were hoping to see some major progress by getting her into school, but that isn't really happening. All she has learned is how to copy the other kids.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

Taeweave, I am not familiar with the system in Texas, but see if you can talk to someone who already had a child with special needs (look for support groups in your area) and they can tell you what might exist outside the school system. Here in PA, the state picks up the bill for extra help (they call it "wraparound" here) for kids on the autistic spectrum (which your child may or may not be on) as well as other diagnoses, but you have to have an official diagnosis and then apply for what amounts to welfare on the child's behalf.

jayhawkmom, what you describe could be anything or nothing--but it does sound to me almost exactly like my oldest son, who was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (high-functioning autism) at age 4.

We were able to get lots of help for him, and he has done really, really, really well. With the right kind of help, I think it IS possible to catch up and function just like everyone else, and there are some definite positives as well.

Whatever the diagnosis turns out to be (or not to be), the best help is going to be YOU, as you know your child better than anybody else ever will. Read and research like mad--and then make your own decisions as to what will be best for your child.

I had read a lot about certain "therapies" for autistic children, which I just couldn't imagine would help my child, so I did things that I thought would help. Every child is different, no matter how many other children share the same diagnosis. Unfortunately, a lot of therapies treat the diagnosis, not the child. But a really skilled specialist will adapt EVERYTHING in their arsenal to best suit the child.

We did get OT for our son's balance and fine/gross motor issues, and that helped tremendously. We followed that with tap and ballet classes, and then with Tae Kwon Do. The Tae Kwon Do Master was fantastic--he assigned a black belt to work with our son one-on-one for a year and a half, and he made sure that our son was comfortable in the dojang for several weeks before he let him know what the (high) expectations were. (Our son just received his second degree black belt tonight. )

He also was in speech therapy, not because he couldn't talk clearly, but so he could learn the more advanced conversational skills that he had not picked up on. Drama classes were also a great help. We found a non-competitive church-based one that did a wonderful job teaching necessary things like facial and vocal expression, body language, etc. and he loved being in the plays.

Suzuki violin lessons have taught him listening and adaptation skills that traditional music lessons don't emphasize. The Suzuki method is also lightyears ahead of traditional in terms of fun and enjoyment (and I am a professional violinist who DIDN'T learn by the Suzuki method--and I wish I had!)

Well, I hope that gives you a headstart on what might be helpful. Let me know what transpires, okay?

[shayesmom]

Can celiac cause developmental delays? I thought I read somewhere that it does,But cannot find it now. Nicole is behind in alot of areas. I am just trying to figure out id celiac contributed to it.

Thanks if you know we are trying to get her into pre-k. I don't know if that info would help but it can't hurt.

Thanks

Celina

Celiac can cause all sorts of delays when untreated. I was going through PubMed articles last week and found over 40 articles connecting Celiac with neurological problems (which can also be tied to delays). And those articles were only by one researcher!

In any case, I am sure that the diet will help tremendously and I'm also sure that an OT would be of help also. Depending on your dd's progress, you may want to keep an eye open for issues with casein (and soy). Casein can also be considered a neurotoxin. Not quite as powerful as gluten....but nothing to be overlooked either.

Good luck!

[Nic]

As I have mentioned before, my youngest son, who has not been diagnosed with Celiac yet, is developmentally delayed. Primarily gross motor and I would say emotional/social growth. He was also with Early Intervention up until he was three. So right before he turned 3 I had him evaluated by our public school district. I believe if they know the child was with EI they are more ready to take them seriously. The problem is that they really only help them with the problems that will affect them academically. For example, last year he was receiving OT daily, speech and feeding therapy twice a week, and physical therapy once a week. This year everything stayed the same except for the physical therapy which they dropped to once a month . Meanwhile, he still can't get from a lying down position to a sitting position, still has a slight head lag when pulled up, and trunk muscles are extremely weak. He is now 4 and a half. But it doesn't affect his ability to do well in school so I guess it fall back on us. I am trying to fight it because he cannot be trusted on stairs alone as his trunk muscles throw off balance. Anyway, I am in the process of getting him tested for Celiac and have read that it can cause developmental delays.

Nicole

[Guest nini]

my daughter had developmental delays as an infant, we had to work with her on rolling over and laying on her tummy, she NEVER crawled, and when she did finally start walking, that was delayed too. She wasn't dx'ed until 3 though and at the time I attributed her delays to being premature, but now? I wonder if it was Celiac related. After putting her on the gluten-free diet, she very quickly caught up with her peers as far as motor skills were concerned. (We never had an issue with speech or things like that, it was all physical delays).

[GraceA]

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!

Of course I can't tell you whether your individual kids are suffering from Celiac related delays. However here's the story of my son:

I didn't introduce wheat into his diet AT ALL until a year. He was 15 months old when he started vomiting a lot. He'd had diarrhea for several weeks, and I'd been told it was just a bad virus. I figured out the celiac on my own--it runs in my DH's family. But I didn't figure it out until the vomiting started, a bit after every meal. He was still nursing, so that's how we were getting by. He'd just quit eating table food for a couple of days after the vomit, and nurse and eat yogurt exclusively.

I noticed he stopped trying to talk. At fifteen months he'd been babbling and trying to communicate. Then he stopped walking. Then he mostly laid around, not interacting with us at all. Sure that was partly because he felt so bad. But not even crawling or making baby sounds? I was worried.

The doc did a blood test for the sprue antibodies and they came back VERY high, so we went to a pediatric gastroenterologist. When I talked to her about the development issues, she said that one of the indicators on his blood test was a specific low enzyme. It's a developmental enzyme. When your intestines are damaged, you can't absorb the enzyme. And development gets retarded.

He's now seven years old and perfectly normal developmentally. So don't get discouraged!