We are Making Progress

Last August we noticed that Naomi was not talking as well as she should for her age. We noticed that she made very few sounds and those that she did make did not include many consonants. She also would absolutely not repeat sounds or words that we would say to her. She did babble, but it was always to herself and with little variety. Because of my background in pediatric physical therapy, I wanted to have her evaluated right away. Many people told me that I was being overly concerned and that she would probably be just fine.

I called First Steps and got her into the system right away. A therapist came out and did a 5 area assessment on her and determined that indeed she did have a speech delay. She was then evaluated by our very good speech therapist Laura Mize. Laura determined that she was delayed in language comprehension and in speech. She did not make the appropriate sounds for her age and was not understanding language the way she should.

Naomi has been getting speech therapy with Laura twice a month for the last 6 months. I cannot even begin to explain the kind of progress she has made. One of the most valuable things Laura told me when we first started getting together for therapy was that Naomi can talk, but we are not recognising her attempts because we do not understand her attempts at language as words. We focused on really listening to what Naomi said any time she made sound and started reinforcing the words that we thought she was saying. We worked on sound effects more than actually word with her and just had fun with language. Naomi started responding, slowly at first, but in a way that just amazed me. We continued to do sign language with her and she was picking up new signs almost as soon as we would introduce a new one to her.

It has been 6 months and Naomi is now age appropriate for language and comprehension. She is still difficult to understand and she continues to have a problem putting words together, but she has made wonderful progress. She will continue with therapy to work on her motor planning (word combining) problem and her articulation. Naomi now has over 50 words that she uses consistently and many signs. She uses words more than her sign now, but will still sign things when we do not understand what she wants. Thank you so very much Laura for working so well with Naomi and us and for showing us how to work with her. Check out Laura's website at teachmetotalk.com