Nothing New

Today we saw another SLP, this one through our healthcare provider.  The end result was neither good nor bad, so I guess that's a good thing.  She didn't ask any of the annoying questions or make lame statements like we've become use to (i.e., he's a boy and they sometimes talk late or are his older brothers talking for him?).  At the end of the appointment, I thanked her for that.  She laughed and said she had been doing this for a long time and wouldn't ask things like that.  She read through Nate's IEP and agreed with the dx of either CAS or a phonological disorder.  It was nice to hear that confirmed.  Since our healthcare provider will only provide speech services when it's medically warranted, there's probably not much she can do.  So we'll be going back in about 3 months to see what progress is being made with his current therapy and maybe something more definitive as far as an official diagnosis.  She said that we're doing all the right things.   For me, it just doesn't feel like enough because he's not talking yet.  I just want everything to be fixed right now.  I know I need to be patient with it all and allow for more time.  We also talked about how the quality of the therapy is more important than the quantity and hopefully starting in the fall he'll be spending 2 times a week with the school district and another 2 session with the local university.  But until then, the focus really needs to be on continuing what he's working on in therapy, at home.

I was able to sit in on another therapy session with the school district earlier this week.  He's really working hard on his individual sounds and learning new signs.  A friend of mine got me some Signing Time videos, I've been wanting to get a few of these to use with Nate.  They are really geared towards toddlers and preschoolers and he enjoys watching them.  We're definitely going to have to work on more signs.  While we sign we are also working on the sounds, right now it's mostly initial sounds but it's a start.  The hardest part of the signing is remembering to use the signs throughout the day.  Since he understands everything, it's not natural to sign along with what we're saying to him but I'm sure if we sign more often, that will help him use it more too.

I'm hoping that in the next few weeks we can start video taping some of his sessions to have samples of the progress he's making.  Sometimes it's hard to see the changes when you're right in the middle of it all.