Micah yelling, "TaDah!"As many of you know, Micah has been the little boy with few words for a while now. In fact, a little too long. The doctor raised her eyebrow a few times at check-ups but there were many logical reasons too-He's the third, He's a quiet kid like his dad, Aubri didn't talk until she was two, It's hard for anyone to get a word in a family of five. It was time to get things checked out. So, we had his hearing checked before moving out to Colorado and that turned out fine. Once we moved out to Colorado I called the school district to have him assessed. They had a team of four people come out (The team was composed of a nurse, psychologist, speech pathologist, and ???). From the visit they concurred he was behind and that we should start services. Drats...not what I wanted to hear but still what I expected to hear. It really just hurt my heart. You never want to hear that something could be or is wrong with your child. They had many positive things to say, that he was bright, he understands everything, etc. I asked why he was having the problem with the speech then and they didn't have a great answer but said that it may be apraxia of speech, a speech disorder where a person has difficulty saying what he or she wants to correctly and consistently, it is present from birth, it affects boys more than girls. He may or may not have this. After talking with two different speech therapists, they are not sure yet. He articulates vowels well, which is not common for children with apraxia. He never babbled as a baby though, which is common for kids with apraxia. He also never repeated anything like many children do (ie. "say ball", (no response). Anyhow, after worrying, praying, and a lot of working we are seeing great improvement!!!
The speech therapist comes to visit twice a month. She's been to our home twice now. I am soooo thankful that I can be home to work with him daily instead of him just getting a session twice a month. We have been blessed with a good therapist too. She comes right to the house and has used lot of fun meaningful games to work with Micah. She has also given me lots of ideas on how to get Micah to learn how to articulate his sounds. The biggest idea being, that he looks at my lips when I am pronouncing words. Sounds simple, I know, but perhaps because he was the third, I may have not noticed I wasn't doing that quite enough. Anyhow, the therapist pulls his chin up, as a non-verbal cue for him to look at her mouth. He does not like this one bit so I have tried just the simple, "Micah, look at mommy's lips." Most of the time he will but times when he has had enough he says, "no way" (which just delights me that he is using two words together :) or he will just roll his eyes and look away. There have been great achievements in a little amount of time but it has also been tiring for him too. It so hard to see your kids struggle!
He has gone from almost no words to speaking some two word phrases. This is super exciting. I am excited to see what God continues to do. Micah has been surprising me daily with more words and better articulation. Dr. Suess books have really come in handy lately for enjoyment for him and for the sound patterns I want him to learn. Hopefully it will be just like his Grandma Pam was said, "Don't worry, in a few months you won't even think twice about this because he will be talking all the time." The last few days have seemed somewhat easier for him, which eased my worrying heart a bit. He has been saying "Lella" for Aubri "Nanin" for Gavin and it's just so awesome. We will continue to humbly take it day by day and count the small successes.
