Yep, those things are happening at our house! But before I give you the news flash, here’s the long way around of how we got there.
A few weeks ago Peter met with a developmental pediatrician. We have been very happy with the care we have received from all of our doctors and therapies, but we had the opportunity for an appointment through the agency we receive therapy through and thought, why not? While we didn’t learn anything particularly new about Peter’s speech delay, it was a great appointment. Peter did very well showing what he could do and the doctor commented that his social interaction, cooperation, playfulness, and responsiveness were all great—she said he was a delight and that she wished she worked with kids like him all day long! Peter is generally joyful, curious, and excited to try new things and work hard.
The doctor shared that many times we don’t know what causes a child’s language delay. She was impressed by how far Peter has progressed, given his history, and said that his time confined to a hospital bed and intubated is the most logical reason for his delays. Even if we knew for sure exactly what the cause for Peter’s speech delays were, our treatment/therapies would be the same. Peter understands everything we say to him and can always follow instructions (or can choose not to—ha!), which is an advantage that not every kid has. Seeing Peter’s struggles with speech has made me realize how amazing it is that toddlers learn to talk as early as they do. We have every expectation that he will learn to speak clearly; it’s just taking him longer than his peers.
One thing that has unexpectedly been so good for him is sign language. Fortunately, we haven’t really seen much frustration with Peter being unable to tell us what he wants. I attribute this to Peter’s good nature and early intervention of speech therapy. We have seen frustration when he communicates with me, I understand his request, I deny his request, he understands my denial, he doesn’t like my denial, and he throws a fit. But that’s just two-year-olds.
One of the aspects we have struggled with regarding signing is why spend a lot of energy on teaching sign language when we actually want him to use his voice to communicate with us. Are we being counter-productive? The answer is that speech is much more complicated than Speech is very complicated. It has to start with a thought/knowledge of what one wants to say. Then the vocal chords, tongue, teeth, lips, and/or throat all have to get organized in the right way and right order to make a combination of sounds come out. That’s the part that Peter is learning. However, it is a mistake to believe that because Peter cannot regurgitate information back to us verbally, that he is incapable of learning. It is hard to know what to do there isn’t any voice feedback or indication of understanding when you’re playing with and teaching your child. With my older kids, I said things like, “What does the cow say?” or “Say cow” and they just…did it. And so we basically taught them concepts and vocabulary by exposing them to it and then “quizzing” them on it. To which they proudly spoke the correct or near correct answer. With Peter, we have found that he can learn and remember ALOT and we practice it with him using signs, and the words and sound approximations he does know. We ask Peter, “What’s this animal?” and he shows us the sign. Or we say, “What does a cow say?” and he can say moo. Some concepts he knows are animals, animals sounds, colors, recognition of all letters, sounds of almost all letters, signs for many letters, completing puzzles, imitating lines I draw on paper, recognizing and knowing signs for everyday items that you would expect a two-year-old to recognize (table, chair, tree, playground, items of clothing, pillow, baby, crayons, coloring book, homework, school, dancing, playing, bath, anything you would mention to a toddler). One of his favorite things is pointing out letters everywhere—books, shirts, doors, games, worksheets, brand names on anything around the house. Peter has had his own version of signs for his siblings’ names, but in the past few weeks he has also learned approximations of Aurora’s (Roh-rah) and Michael’s (Muh Muh) names, which has been so special for them. However, to their chagrin, Peter can also tattle on his siblings too.
One thing that the doctor shared that took us by surprise was that she felt Peter would benefit from preschool this fall (as long as we and our team were comfortable with sending him). While we work hard to challenge Peter, our family is used to his “Peter language” because we live and care for him on a daily basis. The doctor felt that time with peers would challenge and motivate Peter in his speech. Since Peter has an August birthday and therefore will be a young three-year-old this fall and I didn’t feel comfortable sending a child, who knows only a dozen clearly spoken words, we were not considering preschool for Peter this year. However, her recommendation made us reconsider. So we are in the process of enrolling Peter in preschool. We do plan to send him to three years of preschool, and he’ll be starting kindergarten right after he turns six.
One of the next steps for us to prepare for preschool is potty training, which I have not been looking forward to. We have two successfully potty-trained kids at our house, but I still feel like I have no idea how to do it—I think we all just failed our way along until they figured it out. However, Peter has had successes immediately and has been doing great for the past week. He is light years ahead of where his siblings were at this point in the process–as in, after a week, he has been dry all day in his underwear. If Peter were my first child, I would be tempted to believe that I was an amazing potty-trainer, however, I know better and have no idea how this is being accomplished, but if I ever figure out the Silver Bullet of Potty Training, I’ll write and book and make the big bucks. Of course, we borrowed from the library the Potty Time Signing Time dvd!
Thank you for your continued prayers! We are so thankful that Peter is doing well, and do not take his progress for granted.
I have posted some pictures on CaringBridge:
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/peterhernandez/journal/view/id/6054051482357af56f8b46bd