Speech News

Last May, Red Fish was diagnosed with speech apraxia by the speech therapist we had been seeing for a year.  In June, we started private speech therapy in addition to the therapy Red Fish was receiving through the health department and the school district. When we took her to the children's hospital rehab program they re-tested her. She took the PLS test (Preschool Language Scale) and tested in the 2nd percentile for expressive language skills.  (That is basically her ability to use language and vocabulary regardless of how well it is articulated.)  It was an equivalent age of about 16 months and she was 2 yrs. 7 months old.  So she was about a year behind.  Her auditory comprehension (the amount she understand of what people are saying to her, has always tested extremely high.  She has always known what she wanted to communicate, she just hasn't always been able to get her brain to communicate with the articulating muscles. She had 10, single syllable words in her vocabulary and just learning a new sound was taking months.  Red Fish called me "Mommy" for the first time only 8 months ago. 

Last September, we had her tonsils and adenoids removed and got her tongue clipped.  It made a huge improvement in her ability to communicate.  Then in October she retook the PLS in order to enter special needs preschool through the school district's speech program.  She came in at the 4th percentile on the expressive language portion.  It was more improvement than we had ever seen so it was good news.  Since November, Red Fish has attended the preschool twice a week with an in classroom speech therapist in addition to the private speech therapy 1x a week and almost daily speech practice at home.  We try for an hour on the days she isn't with a speech therapist.  We don't always make it, but that's what we try for. 

Since last fall, Red Fish has made progress in huge spurts.  It will be nothing for a couple months and then she will blow me away with some new-found communication and language skill.  The last month she has started talking so much that it is enough to make me want a pair of earplugs sometimes.  I'm teasing of course- it's fabulous even when it's exhausting.  Between New Fish becoming a chatty cathy and Red Fish talking up a storm things have been pretty noisy.  If my ears appear to be bleeding, it's because I get asked about 30 questions a minute, especially if held captive in the car. 

This month, I asked for Red Fish to be tested again because she has made a lot of progress lately.  The speech therapist did the same diagnostic PLS exam and... I think I might cry just typing this.  Red Fish came in at the 96th percentile for expressive language.  That's the equivalent age of 4 years, 4 months.  She is currently 3 years, 5 months old.  I am blown away.  Who even knew that much progress was even possible in less than a year?

They also did an articulation test this time around. They've never been able to do one before because she didn't have enough language skill yet.  She came in at the 8th percentile, well below her age level.  That may sound low, but considering that she was never even on the chart before, it's fantastic news.  With the hurdles she has already come past, it gives me a lot of hope and a whole new drive to keep working with her.  A couple of months ago I was really down about speech things but seeing this amazing progress puts things back in perspective. I never even thought she would achieve that level, we were shooting for average!

So... what do we do for our speech practice?  Red Fish's school sends home a lot of worksheets and/or cutting and pasting activities.  I think those are only so-so.  We have a lot of flash cards concentrating on adding new sounds or helping with articulation.  We play a lot of matching games with them or play go fish frequently.  I've printed, colored and laminated games that help with phrasing.  For example a game pictured above shows a character doing an action and Red Fish has to say "He is dancing...etc."  For the last few months we have been working on the letter "S" in different placements "F" and we are just starting on "G" and "C".  We have notebooks and notebooks filled with pictures to help her articulate multiple syllables.  She has had to scrape cheerios off different parts of her lips and tongue to exercise muscles.  Right now I've been trying to hold her tongue in position with a tongue depressor while she says her "C" and "G" sounds.  We play board games or do puzzles and insert flash cards between turns.  Pretty much anything that makes the work more fun.  Keeping her concentration and focus for an hour is a daunting task but overall she has worked VERY hard.  She is usually extremely cooperative and I think she enjoys the one on one attention.

It feels like a new chapter.  We still have appointments with two specialists this summer (they were booked 6 months out) to rule out underlying problems but things are going great.  These are the miracles that keep mothers going!