Today we had our second speech assessment for Jonah. Joel attended this time, which was nice.
Our own personal update:
-Jonah has around 100 words he uses on a regular basis, in addition to about 40-50 other words he has said in the past, but not repeated
-as posted earlier, he is now putting 2-3 words together
-at this time last year, his most commonly used word was 'ah'. He used it what seemed like all the time. Seriously, all the time.
What the speech therapist had to say (the good stuff):
- his receptive language (understanding) is on average, if not a bit above for his age
- she felt that he is extremely smart for his age
- she was very impressed with how well he did with the testing. She said even though is isn't quite 3, she has a hard time getting 3 year olds to sit as long and as well as he did, not to mention how well he listened.
- in all, the most important thing she wanted to let us know is that because he doesn't have any issues understanding directions and people in general, etc. that we really shouldn't worry about anything serious. We knew that, but it is always a comfort to be reassured.
-his speech skills have moved from a 12-18mth old level in October to about a 24mth old level. It's progress in the right direction.
Diagnosis:
- severe expressive delay
- severe phonological delay*
- neither surprises us, we knew about the first, and just thought the term encompassed the phonological aspect
- what this basically means is that Jonah has trouble saying words and when he does, the words he uses are not functional words for effective communication and lack proper pronunciation. Again, we knew this.
- she did admit to scoring him lower. This is because although we know what he is saying, she feels a stranger would only understand about 20% of what he is telling them, and she had difficulty knowing what he was saying during the testing. Also, it will help him get funding.
- when I asked, she said he could have some form of apraxia (where understanding is normal, but the neurological function that helps a person get the words 'out' needs assistance), but it was hard to say at this point.
- if he continues with the same level of progress, and the phonological aspect clears up, he could be 'normal' with his speech around 4 years old. Again, it's a wait and see approach. One thing at a time.
Where do we go from here:
- we find out soon (she wasn't sure when though) if he is approved for a special preschool program for children with speech delays. There would be about 8 kids in the class, a teacher, a teachers aid, and a speech therapist.
- if he is approved, he will begin in September for about 3 mornings a week
- if he is not approved, he will begin speech therapy instead, but she doesn't feel he would benefit nearly as much, and that the progress wouldn't be as successful as the preschool program would be
So that's it! Nothing surprising, but at least we know where we go from here and that this can be fixed. We just need to be patient and give lots of love. I think we've gotten pretty good at that. :)
*Here are two brief description of phonolgical disorders/delays - it is different than a prononciation delay/disorder:
~There are many different phonological processes which SLP's see and treat. One of the most common is called "cluster reduction". Children who use this process will take a sound blend (like [bl] [sp] or [tr]) and omit one of the sounds: "blue" becomes "boo", "spoon" becomes "poon", and "tree" becomes "ti". Another common process is called "velar fronting". Children who use this process substitute sounds produced in the front of the mouth (t, d, n) for sounds produced in the back of the throat (k, g). In this instance, "duck" becomes "guk", "car" becomes "tar", "go" becomes "do" and "can" becomes "tan".
~A phonological disorder is where the child leaves out letters. So "orange juice" becomes "oran ju" or "snoman" becomes "noman". My dd could breakdown all the syllables to "blueberry waffles" perfectly and recite it back to me w/o a problem. But on her own, it came out "booby wawas". It wasn't a matter of controling muscles, it's the message from the brain to the mouth gets jarbled along the way. Her thought process has to be retrained to say all the letters in the word.
Our own personal update:
-Jonah has around 100 words he uses on a regular basis, in addition to about 40-50 other words he has said in the past, but not repeated
-as posted earlier, he is now putting 2-3 words together
-at this time last year, his most commonly used word was 'ah'. He used it what seemed like all the time. Seriously, all the time.
What the speech therapist had to say (the good stuff):
- his receptive language (understanding) is on average, if not a bit above for his age
- she felt that he is extremely smart for his age
- she was very impressed with how well he did with the testing. She said even though is isn't quite 3, she has a hard time getting 3 year olds to sit as long and as well as he did, not to mention how well he listened.
- in all, the most important thing she wanted to let us know is that because he doesn't have any issues understanding directions and people in general, etc. that we really shouldn't worry about anything serious. We knew that, but it is always a comfort to be reassured.
-his speech skills have moved from a 12-18mth old level in October to about a 24mth old level. It's progress in the right direction.
Diagnosis:
- severe expressive delay
- severe phonological delay*
- neither surprises us, we knew about the first, and just thought the term encompassed the phonological aspect
- what this basically means is that Jonah has trouble saying words and when he does, the words he uses are not functional words for effective communication and lack proper pronunciation. Again, we knew this.
- she did admit to scoring him lower. This is because although we know what he is saying, she feels a stranger would only understand about 20% of what he is telling them, and she had difficulty knowing what he was saying during the testing. Also, it will help him get funding.
- when I asked, she said he could have some form of apraxia (where understanding is normal, but the neurological function that helps a person get the words 'out' needs assistance), but it was hard to say at this point.
- if he continues with the same level of progress, and the phonological aspect clears up, he could be 'normal' with his speech around 4 years old. Again, it's a wait and see approach. One thing at a time.
Where do we go from here:
- we find out soon (she wasn't sure when though) if he is approved for a special preschool program for children with speech delays. There would be about 8 kids in the class, a teacher, a teachers aid, and a speech therapist.
- if he is approved, he will begin in September for about 3 mornings a week
- if he is not approved, he will begin speech therapy instead, but she doesn't feel he would benefit nearly as much, and that the progress wouldn't be as successful as the preschool program would be
So that's it! Nothing surprising, but at least we know where we go from here and that this can be fixed. We just need to be patient and give lots of love. I think we've gotten pretty good at that. :)
*Here are two brief description of phonolgical disorders/delays - it is different than a prononciation delay/disorder:
~There are many different phonological processes which SLP's see and treat. One of the most common is called "cluster reduction". Children who use this process will take a sound blend (like [bl] [sp] or [tr]) and omit one of the sounds: "blue" becomes "boo", "spoon" becomes "poon", and "tree" becomes "ti". Another common process is called "velar fronting". Children who use this process substitute sounds produced in the front of the mouth (t, d, n) for sounds produced in the back of the throat (k, g). In this instance, "duck" becomes "guk", "car" becomes "tar", "go" becomes "do" and "can" becomes "tan".
~A phonological disorder is where the child leaves out letters. So "orange juice" becomes "oran ju" or "snoman" becomes "noman". My dd could breakdown all the syllables to "blueberry waffles" perfectly and recite it back to me w/o a problem. But on her own, it came out "booby wawas". It wasn't a matter of controling muscles, it's the message from the brain to the mouth gets jarbled along the way. Her thought process has to be retrained to say all the letters in the word.
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