Please forgive my lack of posting. We have been on vacation, and I am still trying to find our new out-of-school norm.
I mentioned earlier that our state's Early Intervention folks had done an evaluation on Jack, and there was one area that he qualified for services: Speech. He has almost caught up in every other area, but his speech is very slow in coming. I get a lot of questions about Jack's speech, so I figured that this would be a good place to answer some basic questions.
Can he speak English?
This one gets an eye roll out of me every time. No, he can't speak English. Most 21 month olds that I know aren't exactly fluent, ya know?
How will you teach him English?
The same way every English-speaking parent teaches their baby English - they talk to him. Children learn to understand new languages amazingly fast. That's why people should learn second or third languages as small children instead of as adults or teenagers. (But wait, that's another rant of mine.)
Can he speak Chinese?
Nope, he can't speak Chinese either. The thing is, he doesn't speak. He babbles. Because of his cleft palate (the big, gaping hole in the roof of his mouth that goes up into his nasal cavity) he cannot produce most consonant sounds. He can't make the puff of air he needs for some sounds. Couple that with the fact that he hasn't been encouraged to babble and play with his sounds. You know how parents copy their baby's sounds and go back and forth being silly? This teaches the child to explore their sounds and to imitate words. But Jack is just now experiencing that. So, he can say, "Ah gah!" and "mamamamamamama," and "Uh-oh!" and "Ow!" That is his current favorite repertoire.
Will he ever learn to talk?
Absolutely. We are starting off with an hour of speech therapy a week. Melissa comes to our house and basically plays with Jack and me. She points out positive things he is doing and models exercises for us to do. For example, this week she wants us to repeat the random noises he makes and get really silly so he will be encouraged to repeat the sounds that we are making. It's actually really fun, and Jack gets crazy giggly.
We are also working on teaching him sign language so that he will be able to start communicating his needs with words instead of tears. Last night in the grocery store he signed milk when we walked past the milk and pizza when we walked past the pizza. And then we both got crazy giggly.
(Have I ever mentioned that a great place to have a conversation with an infant/toddler is in the grocery store? You can get lots of eye and skin contact and teach them tons of new stuff, while entertaining the other shoppers at the same time. Yes, they will stare at you if play peek a boo with your baby while you pick out tomato sauce, but it will also make them smile really big, which most tired shoppers need. Consider it your contribution to making your town a happier place to live:)
So, to sum up, Jack is right where we expect him to be right now. He is exploring sounds. He is trying to imitate us some. He is starting to use signs. He's a smart kid. And he is awesome like that.
Posts (so far) about Jack's cleft/developmental/IA issues:
- Let the Appointments Begin!
- Appointments, Part 2: Audiology
- Appointments, Part 3: Plastic Surgeons
- Appointments, Part 4: The Dentist
- Appointments, Part 5: Early Intervention
- ENT (and probably more audiology)
- Plastic Surgeons...Again (maybe)
- Surgery
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