Speech Therapy

Ian recently graduated from physical therapy and is well on his way to running. While we still had him in the system with our community board we decided to have his speech evaluated. We can understand most of what he says, but we're with him all the time. A lot of what he says is not clear and he mumbles a lot.

The speech therapist came over last night and spent close to two hours with us, observing Ian and watching him play. She was pleased to see that he wants to communicate and is trying to communicate verbally. She was also pleased to see that he's using sign language. The therapist was clear to explain that Ian is very bright and tries to figure out many things on his own. He's exhibiting a lot of independence, and clearly interested in learning new skills.

The therapist can also help us from an occupational view, meaning that she feels one of the reasons why he's having trouble articulating is that his mouth, cheek, and jaw muscles may be weak. She feels that he may also have some sensory issues revolving around his mouth as evidenced by his "squirrelling" as we call it - where he stuffs his mouth full of food. He may not know that he's stuffing his mouth and she can help him learn more about the senses in his mouth.

We were very encouraged by her 30 years of experience in children's speech therapy and how quickly she was able to get Ian interacting with her. It's not just anyone who can walk right up to Ian and have him be positively responsive. The therapist is also a pre-school teacher who works with children every day. We're hoping the community board will approve her suggestion of weekly therapy to take advantage of the timing in Ian's current developmental window of opportunity. Cross your finger that they'll approve.

We have homework in the meantime. Robert is to learn 10 new signs for things he wants to communicate with Ian on. I'm to learn more emotion signs and work with Ian on expressing his feelings when he's upset. I'm also charged with helping him say words in the songs that I sing to him by pausing at the one-syllable words to encourage him to say them. For example, "The itsy bitsy spider went...(sign "up" and pause giving him an opportunity to say the word)...up the water spout." The therapist noticed that Ian responds to music well so we'll be using that as a learning tool. It also turns out those sign language DVD's I bought were a good idea!

That's the speech therapy update. We'll keep everyone posted on our little guy's progress.