Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Almost 34 months!

Lots has been happening in our lovely little lives. Soren was recently evaluated for speech concerns and was found to have some moderate deficits in processing and pronunciation. I always thought he took forever/wouldn't respond to questions because he got distracted, didn't care, or was being shy...I had no idea that his little brain was processing the question and had difficulty working on developing a verbal response. A lot of times he will say "uh, uh, uh" as he's thinking and processing. Sometimes when he wants something he will say "Hey" because he doesn't have the verbal skills to say what he wants to say. He also has difficulty making deep throat sounds, such as "k" and "g", in addition to th-/ch- sounds. He has recently started twice weekly speech and it is amazing how much of a difference it has already made in just two weeks! He went from saying 1-2 word sentences to 3-5 word sentences in two weeks! We are working hard at home too, which I believe contributes to the quick learning. His Auntie works at his speech clinic, so it's fun to get to see her so much more now...he LOVES speech! During his speech evaluation, the therapist brought up some possible concerns with his fine motor skills and recommended he also be evaluated for occupational therapy services. He had his OT evaluation today and preliminary results show a mild deficit in fine motor and low-average in gross motor. She shared that he has great gross motor skills, but pockets of skills that he has not yet developed ( i.e. walking on tip toes, walking on a line with one foot in front of the other). She believes this is the root of his accident-prone history. She also voiced some concern with his motor planning (i.e. problem-solving and imitating), which aligns with his speech processing concerns. He will do 1-2 times weekly OT as well to help get him caught up. For a brief moment, my mommy heart hurt for him. Especially when the speech therapist voiced some risks of not working on it now, including isolating from social play and/or increased emotional dysregulation. But then I was proud that I stuck to my gut and had him evaluated...my hope is that he can catch up to peers by the time he starts Kindergarten. He loves it too, which helps ;-). It's melts my heart to see him so proud of himself when he works hard and accomplishes a new speech task!