Talk, Talk, Talk

I think Emily is a bright and capable child, and she talks constantly. However, we as her parents have clearly failed her - there is a gap in her learning. She simply doesn't seem to be able to understand the phrase "Shshsh, the baby is sleeping."

Jacob, however, is at the other end of the spectrum. I have been concerned about his (lack of) speach for about 10 months. We often joke and use the movie quote (from A Series of Unfortunate Events) when he's talking to us - "I'm sorry, I don't speak monkey." Everyone reassured me that it was just that he's a boy, and boys speak later, and even our Pediatrician told me that he'd get it by 21 months old. His speach has been developing, but very slowly. I know he has long been able to understand everything we say to him, he just doesn't seem to be able to form the words to communicate his needs back to us. Each day is a long tiresome game of charades. Thankfully he knows a lot of ASL (signs) and I've become pretty astute at knowing what each grunt means.

At 22 months I still didn't feel that he was moving forward well enough, and last week we had him evaluated. Well, I wish I had trusted my mothering instincts more and had him evaluated earlier. He has a 20% delay in his speach and a mild form of oral apraxia, which means he has trouble moving his articulators (jaw, lips, tongue) on command. I have noticed he drools a lot, and that he overstuffs his mouth when he's eating, and that his mouth is often open, but hadn't thought anything of it. All 3 are classic signs of apraxia. The good news is that he'll have speach therapy twice a week, and it should really help to catch him up quickly.

Of course, I was concerned that it was something I had failed him in, but the SLP (speach language pathologist) reassured me that it's purely a physiological issue, and not due to crummy parenting (whew!) The other great news is that he also had a cognitive evaluation as part of this, and he's actually SMARTER than he should be for his age (double whew!) He played appropriately, stayed on task, knew more than a typical 2 year old should, and understood everthing they asked him to do.

So, everything I have thought for the past year is true - he's bright, and has great receptive language skills - he just can't get the thoughts in his head back out to us, and now we're going to help him with that too. Good thing, because he's got some very talkative sisters to keep up with!