A Good Day at Speech Therapy

When it comes to raising a child like Will, patience is a virtue. For sure. Everything moves rather slow. But the gains, no matter how small, are HUGE! I mean when something new happens we usually make a crazy big deal out of it and celebrate. I love when he does something new!

In the last week Will has been saying his "M's" pretty well. Yesterday when he was in distress I heard him blurt out "mmmm-mama, mmmm-mama." I wasn't really sure if he meant to say mama, but today he did it again when I tried to leave the room so he could be one-on-one with his speech therapist. This in itself is very cool. I like for him to be able to call me something other than screaming. For many kids their first word is mama!

There have been three other times when I can think of Will saying a word. One was when he was about 20 months I swear I heard him say "bird" when a black bird was cawing. Then a few months later I heard him say "ga-pa" once (for grandpa). Around that same time he also was getting pretty good at saying "kitty" for a couple weeks. One of the problems with verbal apraxia is that words can be spontaneously said, but if they aren't practiced over and over again they can be lost. Back then Will didn't have much interest in saying much and was always so busy doing his own thing in his own little guy world.

I found this chart below to be very interesting... Mostly due to the fact that the first sounds a child make are usually vowels, which I think he has mastered for the most part, and N, M, P, H, W, and B. I have heard him say N, M, H, and B. So hopefully soon we will hear the other sounds and he can start making some words. We'll see!

What was even more exciting today, though, was that Will said plain and clear "more" to his speech therapist. Since he was in distress and wouldn't do anything for her without me, I went back in the room with them and helped cheer him up. She was doing a spinning top toy with Will and she asked him if he wanted more, and he did his sign language for "more" and then said it! We both looked at each other and cheered for him. He only really did it once, but the rest of the time he was signing "more" he was doing the "M" sound. Maybe next time I will try to take a video of him. It was so cool! And I loved it that she witnessed it with me to help me believe that was really what was going on. Sometimes I think, did that really just happen? It was so great!

Also, I took this video a little while back (before Will had a haircut haha), but it shows Will signing "more" in his own way. This was his first few days of doing it. He's actually getting even better at it! And also he had just woken up when I took this video and was still a bit tired. But anyway, it's cool. Check it out!

More more more more more more more more more more. Let's go more!