Second Speech Appointment

We had our second speech appointment today. Last time we had to work on 3 signs - more, finished and help. Will grasped the more sign really easily, got the finished sign but has not really understood what is meant by help. So we will continue to work on help.

Our ST was amazed by how well Will is doing and how receptive he seems to be when she asks him to do things. She was playing with bubbles today and we both think the he attempted and said bubble. Then she was showing him a DVD that had children talking on it. He did the 'p' sound - per, and then tried the 'h' sound - her. She was very impressed.

So this week we have to work on the sounds, really push for the beginning sounds of things, ber, ber, ber bubble, per per per pop iykwim. As well as the sign for go and play games and use 'ready, set, go.' Hopefully by the end of the two weeks, Will will be doing the sign for 'go' and maybe even having a go at saying the word. Fingers crossed!

Paed Appointment

We had our paediatricians appointment today. It went better than I could have imagined. Like anyone, you always envisage the worst and think that the best outcome isnt going to happen. He discounted any link to the ASD, which was incredibly relieving.

Will has low muscle tone, of which we were aware of, as well as the fact that he walked late (18mths) sparked an interest in Dr W. But he was pleased with Wills behaviour and the way he walks and gets up onto his feet and such, so he isnt concerned with gross low muscle tone, but more concerned with his low muscle tone in his face which could be contributing to his speech delay. At this stage, Will is going to have a blood test to look at muscle enzymes in the blood and see what impact it has on his speech and whether this is linked to Oral Dyspraxia. I have had a quick look on the WWW for information and what it basically means is that sufferes arent able to move their mouth, tongue etc to produce audible sounds/words. Dr W is hopeful that Will doesnt have this, as are we, and he just wants this discounted. So we will have the blood test and the results come back in 6 weeks - another llllooooonnnnnggggg wait!

If the results are negative, and Dr W is happy, then we go back to him in six months. This would indicate that Will has an isolated speech disorder and progress should occur through his continuation to speech therapy. We have another therapy appointment tomorrow, so I will be back with more information!

Words we know

As of the 23rd of February Will uses or has said on occasions:

mum, dad, tiger (our dog), gar (shorten version of tiger), ball, cheese, chair, shoes, car, stair, ta, keys, he sort of says up and down, look, there, whats that, truck.

Thats all I can think of now - hence the reason of the blog.

He also signs 'more' and 'finished'. They were the signs we had to work on in the last two weeks and I am surprised by how well he has picked these signs up. He uses them when prompted, we practice them when playing and when eating. He gets really excited when I acknowledge him, so I think it is making him more communicative and feel understood.

I hope this continue to work, our ST said that he would pick it up quite easily as he was watching her attentively when she was explaining it to him as well as the fact that he likes to mimic you. It is very rewarding when he makes the correlation between words and signs!

My first blog post!

Welcome to the world of blogging Mel!!

I have decided to create a blog of Wills speech development. A and I were a little bit concerned prior to Will turning 2 that he was not heading in the right direction speech wise. He had met other milestones along the way but just not his speech. I wanted to get in there straight away and get intervention started so that Will would not be left behind.

We began speech therapy late Jan and he was assessed at having a moderate speech delay both receptive and expressive, although his receptive language skills were better than his expressive. At 2, he had about 15 words - the accepted standard is somewhere between 50 - 200 words! Not even close.

Our speech therapist is very positive about Will as we have him beginning speech so early and he will be more prone to developing at a faster rate than had we left it.

On a more personal side, I was devastated with the news. While I knew that there was something amisss, it does hurt when you get the final assessment and the news is confirmed. I struggled with it, along with A, but we are optimistic that Will has the capabilities to be a 'normal' speaker. I was thinking negatively, all the terrible 'what ifs' that suck you in when you are down and out....but his progress while ever so little keeps A and I very positive.