Nolan's Speech

Nolan finally got re-evaluated for his speech. I was pretty sure he would qualify this time as technically he qualified last time and this time the referral was coming from our doctor. The ladies who did the evaluation (including our lovely friend Marj) this time were different than the first time and they were confused as of why they didn't let him have services after the first evaluation. They asked me what, if anything, had changed since his first one.  Well he now would try to make the "ma" sounds, but he wouldn't direct it at me, he would hold his hands up more often when he wanted to be picked up, and he started waving bye bye. So really not much. They qualified him right away and said he was at about a 9 month developmental level. He also got a hearing test done showing that was fine. We have had two sessions so far with his therapist, Julie. She thinks that its a muscle problem - that he can't make his mouth imitate correctly to make the sounds come out. So we are working on him imitating other things first - like tapping his head, clapping, pointing out body parts etc. He seems to be doing ok with this, but the more fine motor you get (pointing at body parts) they harder it is for him. He has started saying "uh oh" when something falls on the ground and I think he is trying to say "bye" to Tyler everyday when we drop him off. He waves at him and make an "i" sound anyway. We are also working on getting him to sign more. Right now we are concentrating on "eat" and "up" so that he will do those consistently. So far if I say eat or sign it he will do it, but he won't sign it to tell me he wants to eat. But at least we are getting somewhere. The other fascinating thing out of all of this, for me anyway, is that his receptive language, or what he understands, is actually above where he should be. We can pretty much tell him anything and he gets what we are saying, from go put your milk in the fridge, to where are your shoes, to when somewhere says they are going to leave he goes and gets them their coat.  He also has his own way of telling us what he wants. If he wants food he goes to the cabinet and points at the food. He has learned to shake his head no in the past few days so now he can tell us no he doesn't wants the kix, he wants the graham crackers. So the tantrums are down somewhat thanks to those new milestones, but by 18 months he should be saying the words not pointing. But I think with Julie's help the words will come sooner and hopefully by 2 he may be where he should be at.