After months and months of being concerned with Shane's speech, we finally had him evaluated. I just felt like he had tons to say and wanted to talk, but just wasn't getting things out right. Bingo! I was right. He qualified in the area of articulation. Yes, most toddlers at this point in their life have articulation problems and that is totally normally. BUT, Shane has so many articulation "errors" that it makes understanding him extra, extra hard. Though the little bugger has awesome ways of working around that by signing, using noises and hand gestures. And I've become super good at interpreting, it is way better to have him get some help now instead of struggle and get to the point where he shuts down and doesn't want to talk any more.
That is where Sarah comes into the picture. She is Shane's Speech Therapist from Kindering Center, an awesome non-profit organization that works with kids birth to three. Sarah comes out to our house once a week for an hour to work on Shane's speech sounds. He works super hard with her and has deeply fallen in love with "Weewah". It's easy to see that some of the sounds that we work together on can be really hard for him, but he tries and is already speaking in more complete sentences, using more words to describe things and has become extremely social with complete strangers. Just in 3 weeks!!
When Shane turns 3 in June he will transfer to the school district to receive services. I'm not entirely sure what that will be like and won't know for a couple more weeks, but it's just great to know the little guy is getting the help he needs. We constantly hear from other people how great he talks, and really it's just that the kid has so much to say, even if it is hard to understand him, he has a story to tell you.
Good for you for intervening early! I am so glad he is doing well and enjoying it too :)
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear he's working hard and doing well already!
ReplyDelete