Raincity Mama » speech delay

No more speech therapy

Sandi — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:13:30 +0000

I took the Dude for a follow up appointment with the Speech Language Pathologist. It’s been about four months since our last appointment. She was blown away by his progress! I know that his speech has really exploded, but it is nice to have a third party confirm that he really has made excellent progress. His speech is still halting but she says he’s operating at a “normal” three year old level.

The thing is that had he been a singleton I might not have worried but Smoochie is so advanced that his speech delay was glaringly obvious. I’m sure that had we left him alone he’d be speaking now but I really think speech therapy helped him. I’d see huge speech developments days after his appointments. I recall being so worried and conflicted about just getting the assessment. Yes, he may end up getting reassessed for kindergarten but I think that he’ll have improved enough not to need any further assistance. And even if he does need more help I want to know that I’ve done everything that I could to help him.

Yay for graduating from speech therapy!

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say my name

Sandi — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:07:09 +0000

We’ve started taking Dude to weekly speech therapy sessions, and today was his second session. At 2 1/2 years old he can say two words that a stranger would recognize. There are a couple of other words that he’ll try but I think I’m the only one that can understand what he’s trying to say. For the rest he signs and when signs fail he points and grunts. He can probably sign over 200 signs but that only works when the person he is signing to knows ASL, which isn’t that many people. It is especially hard to see him out trying to interact with other kids his age and they don’t understand him.

The speech therapist seems to understand him and his situation a bit better. He is one of the youngest patients she’s worked with so she’s having to adapt her method. I was reluctant when we first met her months ago because she was recommending that I stop teaching him signs. I didn’t see why I would take his only form of communication away from him. I still don’t want to take it away. It is just easier to sign because he will readily use signs to tell me what he wants but if I attempt to get him to speak then we go around and around with him pointing to various things and he gets upset when I don’t know what he wants.

As part of my homework with him I’m to try to get him to use his voice more often and to do that we are going to basic sounds, like mmm, dd, bb, ah, oh, eh, etc. If I start he will copy me as long as his sister doesn’t jump in. If I ask him what a dog sounds like and his sister answers he just doesn’t see the point in answering too. I totally get that but I just want to hear Dude try. This is one of the challenges of having twins. It is really highlighted when one if advanced and the other one is delayed. At least they aren’t identical because it would be even more tempting to make comparisons.

Because I knew that we were going to start up speech therapy again I started ramping up practicing with him. The husband and I have also made it a priority to give the kids one on one time with us at least once a week. It sounds so pitiful to see that in writing that they only get individualized attention once a week but I guess all parents with more than one kids struggle with that.

Mama and Dada are the two words that Dude says that I think any stranger would recognize. For the longest time he would only say them when I prompted him to use his voice. The husband would be upstairs and Dude would stand at the bottom gate signing Dad and “calling” him in a wordless way. I’d remind him that his daddy couldn’t see him signing and that if he used his voice then daddy would respond. Only then would he call Dada.

The other day I came home and Dude saw me sneak in the door. He ran over with a look of delight on his face as he cried Mama. I can hardly describe the joy I felt hearing my son call for me unprompted.

We sat today with the speech therapist and it quickly became obvious that for whatever reason Dude wasn’t interested in playing any of her games. She commented on how last week he was quite talkative and it felt like magic and this week, well, not so much.

I’m as on-board with his speech therapy as I’m going to get. I am concerned about the level of his speech delay. I believe that I am doing the best thing by taking him for therapy. I just know that he will speak when he is good and ready. There are a number of kids that for whatever reason decide that speech just isn’t for them and then one day they just start talking. It will take time. For now he doles out words at a miserly rate. Now that I’ve heard him say my name I know that it will happen; on his terms and that is fine with me.

do you know what I mean?

Sandi — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:45:06 +0000

My son is 21 months old and doesn’t speak. We had his hearing checked and it is fine. We’ve gone to the Speech and Language Pathologist and she says that his language acquisition is fine but he is significantly speech delayed. What this means is that he understands most of what we say and points and grunts or signs to get what he wants. He does not say “mama”, “dada”, or “Elmo”. His twin sister says all these things and more. When you compare how many words they know they are pretty much on par for receptive language. On expressive language he lags behind just a tiny bit only because we are struggling to learn signs at a pace that meets his needs.

The SLP doesn’t want me to teach him signs for everything. She thinks that by giving him signs for everything we are removing the need for him to express himself orally. She wants me to teach him the spoken word for an item and not the sign so that he will need to use the spoken word to get what he wants. I feel conflicted about this. Once we started teaching him signs for things like “cracker”, “apple”,“milk”, “book” he had so many fewer tantrums. It was amazing! So many tantrums were just about him not being understood and I’m feeling resistant on not teaching him a sign just see if I can “make” him speak.

I am learning that there is very little value in trying to “make” my kids do certain things. I can’t make them sleep or eat and I’m beginning to think that making them speak needs to be added to the list. I could refuse to give him a book to read unless he says “book” but I see that turning into a battle of wills. While I would love to hear him say “more cracker please” I’m content to repeat the signs and speak the words back to him and keep him stocked in crackers and see him giggle with glee when he sees that I do understand him.