My grandson will turn 4 next month. He can talk and understand what is said to him, but one cannot have a conversation with him. He tends to "parrot" what is said to him. He started preschool in October but there have not been a significant change in his talking. His younger sister, who is 2, is also behind in her speech, although she does not do the parroting, instead doing her own "gibberish". The boy gets some speech therapy at preschool and the girl has someone coming to the house. Recently my grandson has had some issues with eating. He will eat and then it is like the food gets caught in his throat and he will panic. Sometimes he will hold the food in his mouth for over an hour, with a lot of drooling. They have called about this from the school more than once. He has been to a medical doctor concerning this twice, the dentist and recently to a feeding specialist. No physical symptom was found. He sometimes avoids eating all day, drinking a lot of milk instead. The past few days he has done better eating. Are the two conditions possibly connected? My daughter-in-law is a stay-at-home mom until the children both go to school full time.