Lets talk about talking

I had Little T evaluated by another speech therapist.  I just haven’t been very happy with her progress through the school ST.  She sat down with her and had her point out different things in pictures like where is the boy under the table or where is the girl going up the stairs.  Little T did awesome in this!  She asked her to point to her different body parts and a few other little things.  Then she got down on the floor with her and just played with her.  She listened to her interact with me, watched her while she played and continued to ask questions to Little T and then to me about her.  When it was all done and said she told me that she understands everything and can follow complex instructions.  (ok – nothing new there!)

 

 

 

 

 

Then she asked me if I continued to hear the same sounds like she was – the d’s and some other sounds when she was babbling.  I said yep.  She asked her to say momma and then milk.  Momma came out wonderful, milk came out “il” (and of course she signed it!).  The therapist then asked me what I knew about verbal apraxia.  Actually, I told her, quite a bit!  Every time I did research on the internet about her being non-verbal I came back time and time again to this same thing. 

 

The ST then went on to say that she didn’t want to put Little T in this “box” as she called it.  She didn’t want to put a label on her because once a child has a label like this it becomes hard to change it.  I told her to go ahead and do it because then the insurance would pay for private therapy which was my ultimate goal in the first place!! 

 

 

Verbal apraxia – scary stuff.  What does this mean for our sweet girl?  It means nothing in the sense that she’s still our beautiful little girl that we love and adore.  It does mean that we will have to work harder with her and for her.  She’ll be going to speech therapy 4x a week instead of just 2x a week.  After more research I learned that fish oil can help her so I’ve started giving her Nordic Naturals ProEFA (omega 3,6,9) and EPA.  (You guys should see me squeezing the oil out of the pills.  She holds the spoon, I squeeze and she takes it and waits for more.)

 

 

What will the future hold for her?  Only God knows that answer. I do know that this won’t stop her – she’s to much of a little spit fire to let anything as trivial as this stop her.  She gets her point across through sign language and attitude.  Will she ever talk normal?  Yes, I think she will but again, it will take hard work and dedication by both of us.