Speech Therapy

We started speech therapy!  I was a bit hesitant about participating.  After all, I'm a therapist myself, I absolutely adore my child, and we are smart parents.  Did we really need speech to make things happen?  Holden's evaluation stated that he qualified for 2 hours of therapy a week.  I thought we might just do 1.  Surely, I could supplement the rest.
After about 6 weeks of therapy, Holden talks more there than I've ever heard of him.  We can proudly say he is the owner of Ma, Ba, and Pa.  He even made a "ssss" noise for snake once while at therapy.  Now, ma/ba/pa are frequent visitors at our house.  Most everything is still "ma ma" or "ah ma" but some things are taking the form of pa and ba.  He asks for bubbles with "ba ba."  He's calling Pa Pa by his name now.  He even calls the two things he most associates with his Pa Pa, donuts and tractors, pa pas.  Occasionally he says bye with "ba ba." And a few days he held a phone to his ear and said "ah o."  Melts my heart!
Last night he hurt himself by dropping something on his leg and made and Ohh sound.  I tired to capitalize on it and kept asking him to repeat OOOO back to me.  Eureka! He did it about 3-4 more times.  This morning he gave in once and said OOOO to his mother's pleas.
I can't believe how well he participates at therapy.  It's a bit of a bribing strategy- she'll hold up a card or item asking him to say the noise associated with it.  If he says anything, he's rewarded with a new toy to play with.  Of course, she asks him to make a noise associated with that toy as well.  He does get frustrated with her and shakes his head no.  But he's a good sport and they work well together.
I'm so glad we started speech.  At first it was a thought of "at least I'm doing something."  Now I know it is a good structured routine to encourage development in the right direction.

Recently, one of his therapists introduced me to the idea that Holden may have verbal apraxia.  Of course, I went home and googled away to find answers.

What is childhood apraxia of speech?

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.

A Very Young Child

• Does not coo or babble as an infant
• First words are late, and they may be missing sounds
• Only a few different consonant and vowel sounds
• Problems combining sounds; may show long pauses between sounds
• Simplifies words by replacing difficult sounds with easier ones or by deleting difficult sounds (although all children do this, the child with apraxia of speech does so more often)
• May have problems eating

Diagnosis doesn't happen until typically between the age of 2 and 3.  And treatment is intensive therapy at 3-5 times/week.  From my research thus far, these kiddos have normal lives attending school and work.  However, language is harder requiring more effort to make it happen.  Apraxia can vary between mild and severe cases.  

Of course, I'm not sure if Holden is just a "late talker" or does have a diagnosis like apraxia.  We love him all the same and will do everything we can to help.  My major plan is to instill confidence in him.  I've already thought about this with him growing up with a giant scar down his chest.  I know once sports begin, that this may become a burden for him.  He also has a malformed rib wall at his chest because of the incision.  One side of his ribs curves quite nicely, the other side is a bit more pronounced.  I've thought about this a lot.  As he grows up and attends swimming parties, starts developing chest muscular definition which will further pronounce that rib abnormality, and lastly impressing the ladies on the beach while hormones are raging.  (Lord help me!)  I pray I can build him up with confidence that his body is perfect.  

I want to post pics of my sweet little guy.  But I can't figure out how to get the pics of of my fancy iPhone and onto this Mac.