Sunday, January 1, 2012

Out of the mouth of Goobs

My sweet Goober...where do I even begin when it comes to summing up what this kid is like. The term we have chosen lately to describe him is, 'feral'. There was never a boy in this world who could have been more likely to have been raised by a pack of wild animals, and yet I love him all the more for it.

Goob is such a sweet boy at heart, and wants to do everything, learn about everything, explore everything, and test his limits as much as he can. He is mischief incarnate. One minute he will be sweetly smiling at you, and the next he will be impishly looking over at you while doing exactly what you've just told him not to do.

Over the last few months he has really made some major progress in catching up to his developmental markers. Socially he is pretty spot on these days to being a mid two year old. His speech is getting much better too, when you consider where we were even just three or so months ago. He has been working steadily with his speech therapist for the last few months, and I've never seen a little boy who wants so badly to be able to do something (in this case speak). He tries so hard to emulate the sounds he hears, and his vocabulary is growing it seems each day. Although the words still lack many many of the connsonate sounds, it is becoming more clear to those who are around him that he is attempting to say actual words, as the vowels and inflections for the words are often spot on. I find it very funny though, that the one connsonate sound he is able to make time and time again, without any problem is the 'sh' sound. that is normally one of the hardest for young kids, and yet he has a steady array of sh words in his vocabulary.

He did a test run at the preschool in the week leading up to Christmas break, and although he is so young compared to the other kids, the teachers all said he did well. He was engaged and willing to do as he was told, and seemed to be enjoying himself. I really feel that having him around other kids his own age, who are not his brothers, will help him to hear what words are meant to sound like. And that it will be good to have other kids around him who are not going to try to talk over him, or for him, but  make him do it himself.

I plan on taking him soon to see a pediatric audiologist, b/c I am still not convinced though that he is hearing words correctly. I was talking with my mother in law yesterday about it, and we concluded he could very well hear well  enough to follow the directions given to him during the test, which consisted basically of, 'drop the toy in the bucket when you hear the beep,' kind of testing. However, I have to wonder if he is not hearing words clearly enough to reproduce the connsonate sounds.

I am so grateful though, to live in a time when my son is not just written off. That there are amazing programs like Early Childhood Intervention and preschools to work with him, and help him to reach his goals. I'm also grateful for the amazing technology we have, which will be able to help us know if he has hearing problems. And that there are things like my ipad which engage him with some wonderful therapy apps that I couldn't have even imaged using when I was in speech as a child. I know that with all of these resources for us to use, he will eventually get to his full potential, and I can not wait for that day!

Some of his new words:
Sheep
Shoe
Shower
Sherry
drink
food
blankey
froggie
up
Abbey

And.... he has been trying really hard with potty training lately as well! Considering he can't tell us when he needs to go, I am even more proud of him when we manage to put two and two together and make it work!

Now... if I could only get those blasted fingers out of his mouth!

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