Things are moving along in the areas of development for Mikail. Although we have been seen by a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and speech and language therapist for about 22 months now, the focus for the first 18 months was physiotherapy. We have made a shift in therapies in the past few months. He is caught up to his age in the area of physiotherapy and the shift has gone to intense speech and language therapy with sprinkles of PT and OT in there.
Mikail has always been a cautious little guy and taking chances is a huge deal for him, so speech has been a slow go for him. We started teaching him basic American Sign Language signs starting at six months of age. By twelve months old he was using those signs on his own to communicate. We've added words of interest to him, but lately we've noticed that he prefers to sign over speaking. He will even make up his own signs if we don't teach them to him. Kinda cute. Kinda NOT what we wanted. But, we were reminded that it is good to give him those signs. He wants to label his world and the words will come with the signs in no time.
At our last therapy session Mikail's Speech and Language therapist shared that she wonders whether Mikail is slightly tongue tied. He is very reluctant to use sounds such as d,n,l,z,s etc. All sounds that can be hindered by being tongue tied. In her assessment of his mouth, which was difficult to do, because what little boy like someone playing with your tongue, she couldn't be sure. So, in the next weeks we are to do a lot of 'licking' activities to get that tongue used to moving around outside of his mouth. If there is still concern at our next therapy session, we'll see a specialist and see if anything needs to be done. Praying we can take care of the issue with some of this 'finger licking fun'. If it is just Mikail being reluctant, then we will be able to take care of this ourselves. If he is tongue tied, then nothing we do will really help.
This afternoon we worked on licking a sucker (sorry for the poor photos...I only had my Blackberry on hand at the moment):
Mikail's Nana had teeny tiny icecream cones when we visited at Christmas. She got them in the U.S.A. so next time she crosses the border she is going to pick some up for us. Mikail should have fun licking those :)
In other news? We have started the potty training process with Mikail and let me tell you, it's a p.r.o.c.e.s.s.
I have blogged about it here and here.
2 comments:
isn't it so intense raising kids and wondering and worrying about all the challenges they will have to face. At time so heartbreaking and at other times heart filling. Sigh. Today I was biking with Kalem in 18 C weather . . . bliss . . . as he turned down our street and biked ahead of my to our driveway my heart just melted and I felt how fleeting this time is. My heart was bursting with love and breaking at the reminder of time taking these moments away. Sigh. I don't know why I've rambling into this territory. Whatever . . . just my thoughts.
Yup. Pretty intense, but it's all good stuff. Always something to work on and work towards. Good for a goal oriented person like me.
I love your biking moment with Kalem. So precious. Love your words: "My heart is bursting with love and breaking at the reminder of time taking these moments away". Beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. We've been having a lot of extra cuddles, stories, walks in puddles, etc. around here. Trying to make the most of these last weeks of Mikail being an only child with ALL of our attention. His little world is about to change. :)
Post a Comment