Baby diary: 20 months 3 weeks
Sep. 4th, 2020 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia Last week I took Alan to be assessed at a speech therapy clinic (recommended by my sister's colleague) and he was diagnosed with a mild delay, although it's unclear whether this has more to do with word formation or pragmatics or both (more?) There was a long questionnaire and a written report coming, but what I was told and retained was to work on his social skills: for instance, that he doesn't make eye contact when he's asking for an object or bringing one to you, doesn't respond to his name unless he feels like it, indeed doesn't have a consistent name for anyone, and doesn't answer questions like "what is it?" The idea being that he doesn't speak at least in part because he doesn't grok how he's meant to hold up his end of verbal communication.
Well, frankly, my own eye contact "skill" leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm trying. Alan now says "bye bye" properly to his grandparents, and to people we've interacted with in the park when we leave. But I feel worse about the whole thing because I don't like thinking of his delay as being cognitive, if that makes sense. Nevertheless, the clinic wants to treat him and it makes more sense to start now than to sit around waiting. So he'll go for a biweekly appointment starting next week, and we'll see what it gives.
In the meantime, because he was super into the toy car ramp they had him playing with at the clinic, my parents ran out and bought him one. It's very ingeniously put together, but the concept is "police car chase" -- you can set it up such that the car being "chased" goes directly to "jail" -- and really feels like mindless prison state propaganda.
Other than that, Alan came home at the start of last week having sprouted quite a bit, and more settled into his physicality: he can now step off the curb by himself, and wants to go on the (slightly) bigger slide that requires climbing, not just steps. But this past week he hasn't wanted to eat anything, it seems like -- even "white foods" are on thin ice -- and expresses that by spitting out mouthfuls onto his shirt and floor. >_<
Well, frankly, my own eye contact "skill" leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm trying. Alan now says "bye bye" properly to his grandparents, and to people we've interacted with in the park when we leave. But I feel worse about the whole thing because I don't like thinking of his delay as being cognitive, if that makes sense. Nevertheless, the clinic wants to treat him and it makes more sense to start now than to sit around waiting. So he'll go for a biweekly appointment starting next week, and we'll see what it gives.
In the meantime, because he was super into the toy car ramp they had him playing with at the clinic, my parents ran out and bought him one. It's very ingeniously put together, but the concept is "police car chase" -- you can set it up such that the car being "chased" goes directly to "jail" -- and really feels like mindless prison state propaganda.
Other than that, Alan came home at the start of last week having sprouted quite a bit, and more settled into his physicality: he can now step off the curb by himself, and wants to go on the (slightly) bigger slide that requires climbing, not just steps. But this past week he hasn't wanted to eat anything, it seems like -- even "white foods" are on thin ice -- and expresses that by spitting out mouthfuls onto his shirt and floor. >_<
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Date: 2020-09-05 07:13 pm (UTC)Also, a friend of mine has a boychild who barely talked 'til he was way past three. They speak only English in the house, but there's a lot of Russian going on with grandparents and older siblings of the said friend. Her boy also randomly knew every letter in the alphabet and went way up in his numbers at that same age when asked, which gave her even more anxiety if nothing else, because she thought it may indicated behavioural issues, of course.
She was seriously stressing it (as would anyone, I think) and it was augmented by her having health issues while being very pregnant with her second. The little boy was in speech therapy for about a year, i think, which helped at the time a lot. Now, in retrospect, I'm not sure he would've needed it, but my friend needed it for her sanity if nothing else.
Therapy doesn't hurt for sure, and likely helps either way, with the clarity of speech, especially for multi-lingual households. So as long as it makes you feel even a tiny bit better (vs increasing your anxiety), it's awesome. And you're an awesome mom, who reminds me of the mom from DeWitt's The Last Samurai, a tiny bit. And if you haven't read it you should, if you have any time for reading these days. You'd like it, I think. :)
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Date: 2020-09-16 03:22 pm (UTC)I am more worried about Alan now than I used to be, or I guess I'm more frustrated/stymied, because he's not holding up his end of the conversation - the same way anyone would be, talking to a male relative in the house who ignores you even when you're doing stuff for him!!! I think this is what the therapists mean when they say the initial focus should be on pragmatics, rather than whether he can pronounce things or not. All the kids we hang out with are more toward the hyperverbal end of the curve, which makes it more glaring. So it's good to be reminded that not everyone is that way and it's fine. (Can't believe Jake is 10!)