Friday, October 30, 2009
Our speech delay journey
We have been blessed with two wonderful boys. They are full of energy and bring so much joy into our life. Our youngest son Caleb was diagnosed with a severe speech delay when he was three years old. When he was born he seemed normal. When he turned turned two we were very concerned with his lack of speech. After all his older brother could talk very good at two years old. Caleb was different. When he turned three we talked to our pediatrician. We were sent to a speech therapist. His first speech therapist was a fruit cake. She offered us no hope and no help. We were told our son was mentally retarded and would never talk. I would cry every time we went to see the speech therapist. Caleb would cry as well. He did not want to go either. We disagreed with this evaluation. When Caleb went to his first speech evaluation he had not had a nap and was very grumpy. He had no interest in wanting to go through an evaluation process. We felt it was wrong to "label" a child after a 30 min test. Not every child thinks inside the box. Sometimes it is a gift to think outside the box. We fired that speech therapist. It took me 6 months before I would have the courage to try another speech therapist. During that time our son would have 4 seizures. We were very afraid. We prayed and gave Caleb over to God. God has been with us each step of the way. The second speech therapist was a gift from God. It took her three sessions to give Caleb an evaluation. It was her opinion that Caleb was a very bright child with a severe speech delay. She felt that with a lot of hard work Caleb would overcome his speech delay. Caleb is now 9 years old and can talk. He is a very good student in school and a blessing from God. He still has some trouble sounds that we work on. However he speaks well enough that people don't look at me to tell them what he has said. We have come farther than I ever imagined was possible. I would like to encourage everyone that has a child with a speech delay. Please don't give up. There is always hope.
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How long was it before Caleb was really communicating well? We have a 5 year old who has a severe pragmatic speech delay. He has been in speech therapy on and off for the past 2 years. He is out right now. We have a huge bill we are working on. :( Our little guy is also very bright, but back and forth conversation is a huge frustration for all of us. He is starting a 9 hr/wk horse therapy program next week. It doesn't have speech therapy included, but he is going to get individual attention that he isn't getting now. We are just trying to get him ready for K. I really think if he could communicate it would do just fine. Does Caleb have other issues too? They say our son has sensory integration disorder. There has been a little talk of autism, but no diagnosis. He is adopted and was exposed to heroin in utero and I think that is probably what is causing the delay.
ReplyDeleteCaleb has been in and out of speech therapy until he was eight years old. He just turned 9 and only has a few articulation errors. Which we can work with him at home. He can communicat pretty good now. People don't give us funny looks anymore when he talks. It was a very long and painful process to get where we are today. I think when he was 4 and 5 it was very hard. I didn't know how to deal with his speech delay. I think he had a 20 word vocabulary at 4 years old. He would try to talk. But it just sounded like "noom noom noom noom" Then he would throw horrible temper tantrums. We were afraid he had autism as well. We moved from Texas to Washington and we spent 2,500 miles in a car. We played a kids songs music cd for him all day long in the car. And after 2,500 miles of hearing the wheels on the bus go round and round. He shocked us all by saying wheel wound wound. This was a major break thru. He was trying to sing. Also I bought him Hooked on Phonics K. He learned to read. And I can't tell you how happy that made me. He wasn't saying the words correctly for a while. He was leaving off the ending sounds at times as well as middle sounds. But once he was able to read a word it helped him understand that he needed to say every sound to make the word. Hooked on Phonics K has a cd that walks you through the program. It has the ABC's and all the sounds that letters make. We would play that cd many times during the day. It helped a lot. We couldn't afford to keep him in speech therapy. Our health insurance would pay for so many sessions a year. And then we would try everything we could find to work with him at home. Caleb also had a gag reflux. He would gag when trying to make certain sounds. It was very hard helping him learn to say the L sound. The speech therapist gave him occupational therapy as well. It was hard because he didn't want to make those sounds that made him want to throw up. The main thing is that you don't think about where your child should be. Think about how far your child has come. Speech delay is a long painful journey. And with a lot of work any child can make progress. Make sure you find a speech therapist that believes in your child. Positive thinking goes a long way.
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