Neanderthal Speech

I don't know who is having a harder time with speech therapy:  me or Diego.  He has been going to his therapy sessions once a week for 4 sessions now and the only new word he has said is "cookie".

Speech therapy is different than I expected it to be.  We arrive for the session and Diego is taken to a room with the speech therapist while I wait for him in a waiting room for 40 minutes.  The last 5 minutes are then spent with the therapist summarizing to me what she observed during the session.  And the session itself?  Well, I don't know because the door is closed, but when walking by I can hear her talking.  She told me that she has spent many-a-session just talking the entire time (in general, she wasn't specifically speaking about Diego's sessions).

When she said that, I admired her for being so chatty.  I often I wonder if Diego has this speech issue because I'm just not chatty enough.

Back in my college days I had a part time job working at the Fraud department of Bank of America.  There was an older black woman from the South who also worked there:  Ms. Lily May.  Man could that woman TALK!  She talked for hours and days on-end.  She would amuse me with her uncanny ability to come up with the perfect sayings for any topic, which I would later note that Dr. Phil can also do.  Is it a southern thing?

"Give a man enough rope, and he'll hang himself" is just one example of things she'd say.

My point is that if I knew where Lily was today, I would call her up and tell her that I knew the perfect profession for her!  Lily May: speech therapist.

I'm sure there's more to it than just talking though.  Diego's therapist seems to have a different agenda each session.  During the first session she focused on getting him to sign, and she said he was signing "more" by the end of the session.  The second session, he seemed to regress and was shy around her.  The third session, she was noting the exact consonant/vowel combinations that he was capable of and honed in on those, and the fourth session she tried to get him to imitate sounds, but he didn't do it for her.  This surprised me because he's great at making monkey, dog, and even fish sounds.  When she handed me some cue cards to take home I realized that the sounds she was going for were different than what he was used to.  For example:  he knows dog as "wow-wow" not "woof-woof".

I feel like they just don't know or understand Diego yet and 40 minutes is a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things.  Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to devote additional time since I'll be heading back to work and these sessions are going to require me to sneak away during my lunch hour.  I'm doing what I can to help him with his speech.  Here are couple of helpful tips I've received since speech therapy began:

-If your son is within hearing distance, talk to yourself about what either of you are doing.  E.g. "Diego pick up ball", "Diego throw ball", "Mama wash dishes"  (Don't be afraid to sound like a Neanderthal!)

-If you don't understand what your son is saying when he speaks gibberish don't pretend to (even if you know what he wants)  say, "I don't understand what you're saying." shrug your shoulders and try to get him to vocalize a little more before you give him what he wants.    

Even with four sessions under our belt, he is still just getting to know his speech therapist so it's too early to expect any real results.  And yet I was a little miffed to receive Diego's progress report.  It was a formal request for Diego's pediatrician to provide an updated prescription for continued speech therapy.  OK fine.  But in the summary were written the words:  "Expressive language disorder" and although that's probably a term that is often used for anyone needing speech therapy -  I still wanted to use "Expressive Language" in a "disorderly" way when I read that!  What mom wouldn't?

Me Shirley, Me no like speech therapy! (Grunt!) - Shirley

Diego's Speech Therapy Goals:

1. Imitate/produce consonant/vowel combinations and be able to imitate 80% of the time.
2. Learn functional sign language to express needs 80% of the time.
3. Label nouns 80% of the time.

 

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Brotherly Love

No, he's not jealous of his little brother... yet.  He just likes his little brother's things a little more than his own things.  Especially the things that he can no longer fit into.... like a baby carrier.

Diego's 23rd Month:

WORDS:

Dada

Mama

Ball

Bubble

Brother

ALMOST WORDS:

Yes: Goh

Elephant: Abuja

Aceituna (Olive): Ch-Cha
Monkey:  Ah-Ha  (as in "oo-oo-ah-ah)
Train:  Choo-choo

Words Cannot Express (18-Month update)

I hang on every word that you don't say. And you don't say a lot. You get on your imaginary cell phone and each time that the first syllable comes out of your pint-sized lips, I hope to the heavens that it will be strung along with other syllables that form an actual word, and yet to this day all I've heard are "A-da, A-da", "B-da, B-da, B-da" or "Cawwwwww".

You seem to understand basic commands like "Give Grandpa a Kiss" or "Gimme 5!" and my favorite "Please throw this away in the garbage". Yet you don't show any volition to repeat any of these words. So far, the only thing you're interested in repeating is the beastly "RAWR!" that comes from a dinosaur or tiger. I'm at a loss and the pediatrician is too. So she utters actual words that I hang on to even more than your non-existent ones: "Speech therapy" Oh my!

I never would have thought that my son would need speech therapy, just as I never in my life thought I could be a candidate for gestational diabetes. At that moment, I mentally break down for a few minutes while outwardly keeping my composure (I'm good at doing that). My "mommy-moment" brain now consists of tiring thoughts of juggling my prenatal appointments, gestational diabetes appointments, Diego's pediatric appointments, and now his speech therapy appointments while working a 9-5 job, picking up Diego from daycare, putting a hot home-cooked meal on the table every night, and keeping the house clean. I'm about to lose it, and then I snap back to reality when I get an imaginary call from my son's imaginary phone and he places it to my ear...

"Hello? Yes, I'm here."

My two loves...

I've been so wrapped up in my own issues these past few days that I'd forgotten to take a moment and think about OTHER "people", like - Oh, I don't know, MY OWN SON and MY DOG.  This week that passed was Diego's 15 month check in and yesterday was Qori's birthday!

Diego's height and head circumference measured above the 90th percentile according to the doctor's stats.  I mean, I know he's going to be a candidate for the NBA, but now I've confirmed my other suspicion - "Boy got a big ol' head!!!!"  No wonder I ripped... was that just TMI?  Oh well, it's the truth, and you get nothin' but the truth here on Golden Dreemz.

The doctor started asking me about Diego's speech skillz.

"Does he say any words yet?" No.
"Does he understand when you tell him to do something?" Sort of
"If you were to ask him to go get his shoes, would he?"  No.

So she recommended that I buy the book, Good Night Moon, which I did in both English and Spanish (Buenas Noches Luna).  And we are scheduled to return in 6 weeks to see if there is any progress.  I feel like a mom whose been told on.  "She's not doing her job!  She's supposed to be reading to her son!  It's her fault that he's not talking yet."  Truthfully, I've tried.  He only cares about flipping the pages and touching different parts of the book.  It's only been a few days, but I've incorporated it into our routine and persevere even if he could care less to pay attention.  I just know that at some point before six weeks, when I say "Where's the mouse?" he will coherently and happily point to the little mouse on the page.

Yesterday was my little Qori's 6th birthday.  I gave him extra affection and table scraps that day, and we went for a nice hike over the weekend with the entire family.  I feel like I've been neglecting Qori especially since Diego has come into the picture.  A few days ago I had a nightmare that there was some type of bomb alert and I was on the top floor of a hotel with Qori and Diego.  In scrambling to get out of the hotel, I realized part way that I had left Qori behind.  The good news is that I went back to find him.  So that is what I'm doing now.  I'm going back to find my big lump of fur, because he's there in my heart; I just haven't been good at showing it lately.