My lil sister will be 5 this friday and still can't talk.

Came to this thread a little late,

But as a pediatrician I have some advice:

1. I'm glad you had her hearing checked... that was very important

2. It would be very strange for a pediatrician to reassure you about what you described being okay at age 5. Either this is a complete dolt of a pediatrician - who needs to be changed - or he/she is seeing things on exam that is reassuring him/her. I would have your parents ask the pediatrician if that is the case and what is it.

3. When did your sister crawl, walk? does she have any other delays in motor skills, social skills? How many older sibs does she have - i ask because there often is a little delay (little doesn't mean 5years old) with later children. Ask your mother if their were any problems during pregnancy, delivery or since birth.

4. While Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) Programs go from birth till age 3, most states have a Child Find program that then picks up from age 3 till school.
They are usually run through the school district. Usually they are a self-referral and don't require doctor's to be involved and don't require money (government paid program). I haven't worked in Texas since medical school and don't know if this is the case there or not.

Edit - I googled and found this list of ECI coordinators for Texas - http://www.dars.state.tx.us/ecis/resources/childfind.shtml
they may or may not be able to help a 5 year old, but they certainly would know of where they transition the kids next.

The reason I love these programs is that because you can get an "Eval" where they can assess your sister's speech and help if it a simple need for speech therapist - or if they think more is going on they can often "hint" that you need more evaluation

5. In a child with severed limited speech that needs "more eval" the 2 fields would be:
Neurologist - looking for a "medical" cause of this delay. And often if their workup is negative - they might suggest child psychiatry for workup of "mutism".

6. of course be reassured that there are kids who are simply very late -that don't have any long term issues with this.
However - I think the time of "wait and see" for what you described has long since passed and a workup is necessary.

7. oh yeah - while this would usually be obvious on exam - make sure you sister can stick out her tongue completely and straight. Physical problems with making sound usually result is lisps and semi-understandable speech, not in lack of speech - but you never know.



Hope this helps and let me know the answers to some of the questions...