goodfountain

It has been a struggle on occasion to explain Chee’s language development. When I say she’s in speech therapy, people are generally surprised.

“Oh, but I can understand everything she says just fine.” Right. She has a language delay, not problems with articulation.

“She has such a big vocabulary though.” Exactly. She has always had a decent vocabulary. She said her first “real” word (outside of “Dada”) at 12 months (”book” – oh so appropriate given her love of books and early reading abilities). She’s never had trouble saying words.

It’s more about usage. When she turned two she wasn’t stringing 2 and 3 words together. Her pediatrician said to give it a few more months; however, I couldn’t wait that long. After a month I asked for a referral for an evaluation. To say that I was shattered when I heard that she had a significant language delay … specifically in social-pragmatic language … was an understatement. I was devastated. Even though I knew she had a delay, I still didn’t expect to hear those words.

During the three months she was on the wait list for therapy, she met every single speech milestone listed as “she is unable to…” in her evaluation. Great, I thought! We won’t even need this therapy. Come to find out she was still pretty far behind.

I am definitely guilty of being one of those Moms who anticipates her kid’s need and meets it ahead of time. If I were to be honest with myself, though, I realize that I had a sippy cup ready for Chee when she needed it because she never asked for one. I was acutely aware that we were not conversing in ways I thought we should be.

I remember one of the breakthrough moments for me in Chee’s speech therapy was when I realized that Chee didn’t talk to ME. She was just talking. A great example was when she finally did learn to ask for a drink of water (rather than me just having it ready), she’d stand in the kitchen and say, “Need some water. Need sumpin to dreenk.” And from wherever I was in the house, I’d scurry to the kitchen and praise her for using her words to ask for water.

In Chee’s world, when she was thirsty all she had to do was go to the room where the water is served, announce she wants some, and …. poof! There’s water.

This is not to say that Chee was entirely in her own world. She wasn’t. We always had terrific eye contact with each other and there was lots of reading books, playing, and more reading of books. From the age of six months she loved to be read to and would sit through long books. Soaking it all in.

When it came to language, however, things were different. It seemed she was talking more to the Universe than to another person. Once I figured out that she wasn’t talking to me but just talking in general and I happened to be the one to respond, I stopped responding. She pretty quickly figured out to come get my attention. I remember the first time she walked around the house looking for me and said, “Mommy, I need a drink of water.” It was a new level of connection between us that I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing.

Happily I can say that we have moved long past talking to the Universe. She talks to Mommy and Daddy and her sister all the time. She talks to her toys and the Cat too. The poor, poor cat. He’s a glutton for punishment that one.

Chee is not yet where she should be with her language. As I’ve said before, I’m not 100% sure even where she should be. We don’t have a ton of reciprocal communication. We’re having more and more, but there are still many times she doesn’t respond. She is still echolalic and she scripts a lot. Many of our “conversations” are verbatim from Caillou. Say what you will about his whiny voice, Caillou has done wonders for Chee.

It’s coming though. I can feel it. Earlier today she asked for a Popsicle (of course) and when I said, “No,” she came back with, “But, Mommy, I really, really wanna Popsicle!!”

“Way to go, Chee!! I really like the way you asked me for a Popsicle!

… But you still can’t have one.”