S-P-E-E-C-H

(Warning: This post is not edited for clarity, content, or brevity. I mean it. If you don't want to read 487 pages of stuff, quit now. You have been warned.)

Today we had some people come from the Infant and Toddler Connection (ITC) of our county to evaluate Everett's speech and language development. This is a really great program, and they specialize in early intervention so the kids don't have even greater problems later.

My mind is still doing a bit of a crazy dance with all the information, thoughts, and knowledge I have floating around in there right now, but here is the gist of their evaluation:

Everett is normal or above average on everything except:

Expressive Communication (making sounds, gesturing, and talking), and they listed his development at 18 months.

And, surprisingly:

Gross Motor Skills, specifically his muscle tone (not elastic enough), which could be affecting the way his mouth creates the sounds in the words he tries to say. There was only a slight delay here. However, I think it might be even less than they said, as he tends to be less active and more lethargic/schlumpy when confronted with strangers.

So, what does this mean? Well, at his age Everett should be able to say 150+ words that other people can understand, and he should be combining words into short phrases. He is not even close! He has very few sounds that he uses for a lot of words. I made a spreadsheet of some of the words he knows last night; it was filled with about a hundred, and those were just the words that fit into four or five sound series that he makes. He knows many, many more than that.

Most of his words are monosyllabic, and sometimes the sounds he uses to say a word aren't even close to how the word is supposed to sound. Sometimes he will even pronounce any given word a variety of ways, depending on the day (or the hour).


Basically, they affirmed everything I was thinking. However, rather than classifying him as just "delayed", they said his speech was developing abormally. In a strange way, this was reassuring as well as worrying. I was reassured because through this whole process I was questioning myself as a mother. I was thinking of all the things I think I should be better at, and unfairly wondering if any of those had to do with Everett's delays. Sometimes Everett watches movies too often, and sometimes I don't have a good reason for putting them on for him. I was beating myself up about all of this, and thinking things like "if only I had done _____. Maybe it would have helped." Knowing that his development was abnormal rather than slow made me realize that this isn't something I can necessarily blame on myself.

BUT, this was also worrying because now I know this isn't something he will just grow out of. I kept hearing people say how a child they knew didn't talk until age 3, suddenly blurting out whole sentences, and I kept thinking that Everett must fit into that category. I didn't have the knowledge or the tools to think otherwise--this is not my area of expertise.

Now I know that we are going to need to roll up our sleeves and really get to work. It is too bad that we are moving, but it may actually be a blessing. Indiana has a program like this that I am going to find out more about, but Virginia's program has session fees that are quite high for us to consider paying. In Indiana we will be students and will qualify for a much lower rate. Also, we are near the University, so we might be able to find additional help there through some of the graduate programs.

For any of you who are trained in this area, these are the speech therapy programs they recommend for Everett:

PROMPT, which from my understanding is a method in which the instructor places her hands around the child's mouth and nose in a different way for each sound, enabling the child to feel how it resonates and how their mouth makes the sound.

Touch Cues, which seems similar.

I have a lot to learn about these. Does anyone have a good book to recommend me buying to use as a resource?

Also, they recommended that I teach him more sign lanugage. We stopped because he was refusing to actually say those words, but they think that if we teach him more, he can start to combine the signs to make phrases and sentences. That way, his language can keep developing while he is working on his sounds. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am excited to begin. He picks actions up incredibly easily, so it should be a lot of fun, and I think he will enjoy being able to say what he wants to say.

Does anyone know of a good sign lanuage book for us to use? I need to learn it too!

This is quite strange, but I feel drained. I feel emotionally and mentally drained after this morning. And I keep having to tell myself that this isn't my fault, and that I am not a bad mother. Isn't it funny how we do that? How sometimes we make the things our kids are struggling with our fault? I don't know. I guess it is all part of the "mommy guilt", and that things are easier to understand if you have someone to blame them on.

This summer, and this next year will be an interesting one for us. I am going to find out as much as I can about these programs and methods, I'm going to get the outside help Everett needs, and I over the next few weeks I am going to work out a schedule so I know what to work on with him and when. I think this will end up being a good thing for us, as some days we are less structured than I'd like to be. I talk to him a lot, I describe things with him, I ask him to recall things about activities he has done, I teach him about animals and bugs and nature, and we sing songs and read stories. But we're going to need to do more, and we will find a way to be successful!

So anyway, thank you to those of you who recommended this program. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and I am feeling bad that I didn't get him evaluated sooner. Had I known that his development was abnormal rather than delayed, I would have, and I feel terrible about this now. But we can't turn back the clock, right?

The only thing I wish about the evaluation was that Everett was truly himself. But truthfully, I am surprised he did as well as he did with three adult strangers trying to talk to him. The speech therapists were very complimentary to him, saying that he is very bright, and they were very complimentary to me as a mother as well. I was grateful for that--it was something I really needed to hear.


(phew.) I'd better end this post before the rest of my jumbled thoughts flood the computer. You'd all like that, wouldn't you?! If anyone has any advice for me, I'd love to hear it. I am definitely in for a lot of learning!