Sam's Speech, 22 months

It's been two months since Sam started his speech therapy, and my emotions have run the gamut. I've started and stopped this blog post many times, depending on my mood. Some days I'd come here disappointed and filled with discouragement, and other days I'd continue writing excitedly with the latest advancements.

On my frustrated days I would be discouraged, like the day I came across a video of Sam babbling happily at 7 months and realized he stopped saying any consonant sounds. He stopped saying his sole word "Good" a few months ago, replacing all "talk" with a whine or a grunt. Or, when I noticed other toddlers his age babbling or talking, and I had to force myself to not compare and wonder too much about when Sam will speak up, and if and when he does, how far behind he will be. Or, when, a couple of weeks ago, I asked Sam's speech therapist about how often she sees children who lose any language they had, like Sam, and she said she sees it but rarely, and it is a concern. (She didn't elaborate... which of course left me to my wild imagination. We ought to have a dedicated conversation on his progress, best/case scenarios, and any possible timeline. It's a "concern", but what does that mean?)

Sam, 7 months old

And then there are good days where I am astounded watching Sam play with one of his battery toys and answering all the questions the game was requesting. Press the letter S. Press the letter that goes with the word that makes this sound [zipper sound]. Press the ball to play to continue playing. He gets them all right. Or when he opens his shapes book and finds the specific shape you ask, or turns to the page to find the animal in his other book. Or, when he stands in front of our family photos and picks out all of us easily. It's a relief to have him pointing now though it's still not clearly intentional to demonstrate a want (instead he leads us to objects or brings objects to us). Or, when he seems to pick up a new sign language word each day. He consistently signs dog, more, please, bath, bed, book, tree, all done, mom, fan, eat, shoes, car, go and more. This morning he signed moon. It's mostly communicated in response to a request, not as an intentional communication to us, but it's a great start! He knows body parts (head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, belly, hands, toes) and can do motions along with songs. Those are all so encouraging and I have to remind myself he's made all this progress in a quick 2 months! When we had him evaluated in June he was diagnosed as being 9 months language, and here we are 3 months later and he seems to be on target for the age children begin talking (12-15 months).

And then, on Monday, a breakthrough! Or I truly hope it is! Adam and Sam were playing in the other room, and I started hearing sounds that I didn't think were from Adam. Na-na-na-na-na-na with some ma-ma-ma-ma in there, too. We ran to find him, and I'm pretty sure Michael and I both cried a little when we heard his new sounds! Joy. And relief. Each day since then I ask him to say it again, and he does. (I'm fearful he'll lose it just as quickly.) I've also noticed that occasionally he'll stumble across some other consonants like ba-ba or da-da and yesterday he was saying ssssss. We're cautiously encouraged.

Sam continues to work with specialists weekly to help jump-start his language and we had two great sessions this week. Both therapists noticed improvements over the previous visit.

Every other week we take Sam to the children's hospital for speech therapy. Michael usually takes him due to scheduling, but those times that I've attended I really enjoy learning techniques to implement at home.

In addition, we have a behavioral specialist from the Help Me Grow program come to our home each week at 7:30 in the morning (bless her) so I can be involved with Sam's sessions. Occasionally she will bring along an occupational therapist to do additional activities with Sam.

We've learned so much about language development in the last few months. We've learned that there are building blocks of social play, turn-taking, mimicry and nonverbal communication that must be accomplished before he can verbalize. While Sam has always been great at social play and social eye contact, he doesn't always look us in the face when he wants something from us or needs assistance. For example, if take away something that he wants, he reaches for and only stares at the object he wants back. Our play is now focussed on encouraging him to make that "help me" eye contact before we give him what he wants, and he's been doing great at starting to make those connections faster and more frequently.

Sam, 17 months

Additionally, we recently completed a survey as to his daily behaviors to better get a sense of what, if any, sensory issues he may have. Children with sensory issues, it's been explained to us, are overly sensitive to things in their environment which can interfere with normal learning (and speech development). Example, if you're trying to take a test and there's a loud lawnmower outside your window, you may be bothered and can't concentrate/learn. All children have sensory issues that they eventually grow out of. (Sometimes I wonder if there is too much emphasis on trying to peg a behavior as a sensory issue, and I dislike how it makes us question what would be otherwise normal behavior to us. Walking on toes is a sensory issue, and geez, Adam walked on his toes way more than Sam does!)

The thinking is that once we are aware of those areas of his discomfort, we can start working on helping him cope with them (they call it "organize" him) so that he can be more receptive to learning. Initial results showed typical development in most categories and a marginal deviation in just a couple areas. Frankly the report was way over my head, but I did recognize a lot of "typical" results, which is great! Next week the occupational therapist will come with our behavioral specialist to explain and review these more thoroughly.

Sam gives us a "wow" moment each and every day, and it's so exciting to watch him blossom. He has always been wonderful, Sweet Sam, and I knew from his beginning he is something special. Thank you all for the continued prayers and reassurances on his development. I am so optimistic that there will be a time we won't be able to keep him quiet!

Sam, 20 months