Speech Therapy

At 12 months, Camden had one word and I said I'd see what kind of progress he'd made at 15 months before I made a decision about whether or not I wanted to consider a speech evaluation. At 15 months, Camden had 3 words and I said we'd give it a few more months-- until his 18 month appointment-- before I looked into that evaluation. At his 18 month check-up, I told Camden's pediatrician that he maybe has 5 words, and I'm not entirely sure that he's using those 5 meaningfully. His pediatrician, as you might remember, said that he's on the verge of a language breakthrough and that he'd be talking my ear off by age 2.

True as that may be, I decided to silence the little nagging voice in the back of my mind and go ahead and contact our local Early Intervention office to request a speech evaluation. Our local branch is called the Infant-Toddler program and, unfortunately, is not a free service, like it is in most states. In North Carolina, the initial meeting to collect info is free and the assessment with a developmental specialist is also free. However, if your child qualifies for the program, whatever therapies they might recommend are on a sliding-fee scale based on family income. Based on Matt's income, we'd still be responsible for paying 60% of the cost of therapy. Not exactly ideal, but I'm thankful we wouldn't be responsible for 100%.

I was nervous about our initial meeting yesterday because, as we all know, Camden is very slow to warm up around adults he doesn't know. Of course, I prepped Camden that a visitor was coming over to talk to Mommy and that she would say hello to him and maybe play with some of his toys. Predictably, he clung to me tightly for the first 5 minutes after her arrival. He laid his head on my shoulder and peaked up at her shyly. She was great about respecting his temperament-- she talked to me and paid no attention to him until he was warmed up. To my surprise, after those initial 5 shy minutes passed, Camden jumped out of my lap and begin to put on quite the show for the coordinator. He pulled out every single one of his toys and grinned at her while he played with each one. He also brought a couple of toys over to her, an invitation to play. My little shy guy turned into a show-off. In fact, the coordinator labeled him "charming" and "a flirt".

We'll have our actual assessment on June 27th and I'm a bit more hesitant about that meeting since 3 people will be involved. I hope it's not overwhelming for Camden, but I have confidence in their experience in dealing with slow to warm up children. The assessment will be a total developmental assessment even though speech is our only area of concern (that's just their policy, which makes sense). Afterwards, they'll let us know if he qualifies for the program (to qualify, a child must have at least a 30% delay in one area, or a 20% delay in 2 or more areas). I would expect that Camden will qualify because I'm fairly certain he has at least a 30% expressive communication delay. However, if they lump both receptive and expressive communication into one category, he might not qualify. Camden's receptive language skills are, and always have been, excellent.

If he qualifies for services, they'll lay out a plan of action for him. The coordinator told me that they would most likely recommend either speech therapy, or, if they feel he's too young for that, play therapy. Play therapy focuses on imitation and some initial skills that come before expressive speech. Unfortunately, play therapy is not covered by insurance, whereas speech therapy likely would be.

So far, I am pleasantly pleased with our EI experience. She even gave me a helpful tip before leaving. Camden wanted me to help him put crayons back in the box, and let out a frustrated whine/yell noise when I was talking to the coordinator instead of helping him. I reacted instantly and started helping him put his crayons away. The coordinator asked me if he makes that frustrated sound a lot and I told her that he does, especially the older he gets. She said that I need to stop responding to his whines instantly and giving him what he wants right away because I'm not giving him an opportunity to try to use his expressive language; I'm just anticipating his needs or reacting the second he whines (yep-- totally guilty of that). "He's a smart guy," she told me, "And he's realized all he needs to do is yell and Mommy comes running."

So, even if nothing comes of this whole EI experience, at least I was made aware of certain parenting techniques that I need to adjust to help his language develop. Also, one of Matt's co-workers is close friends with a toddler speech therapist and she recommended a book for us to read and sent some paperwork home with parenting tips for late-talking children.

I do realize that it's entirely possible (and maybe even likely) that he's just a late talker, like around 25%  of boys are. And I also realize that he might've caught up on his own by age 2 without any help or intervention. But, I do feel good knowing that I'm doing everything I can to help with his language development. Maybe it's my Type A personality, but I don't feel comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to the most important thing in the world to me: my son.