Today was Kevin's first appointment with the speech pathologist. We went in today for a speech evaluation. Because of his age, the therapist asked me a lot of questions about his speech and development, instead of testing Kevin in any way. There were two forms. Each had around 50 questions. One for was for his receptive skills. That is, how he understands spoken language. The second form had to do with his expressive skills. That is, how he expresses himself with words.
On the receptive end of things, Kevin did excellent. He's 25 months old, but scored as if he were 33 months old. On the other hand, he did very poorly on the expressive aspects. His verbal speech is on the level of a 9 month old. The therapist described it as a "severe delay," which sounds disheartening. But...the fact that he is so delayed makes it a sure thing that we will be able to qualify for their services!
The therapist said that they don't officially do any official diagnosis on patients until further down the road, once they've had a chance to work personally with them. But, she said that her gut feeling is telling her that Kevin may have what's called "Apraxia of Speech." I've been doing a lot of research about speech delays, and this term keeps popping up. So, frankly, I was not surprised when she brought it up.
This is a definition I found of Apraxia:
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.
The therapist has suggested speech therapy for 30 minutes 2-3 times a week. Right now, she'll be preparing a report to send on to the insurance company. Once they reply, which could take anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks, we'll set up a schedule for his therapy. She was very positive, though. She said that there are many kids at this time who receive therapy there who have apraxia of speech and that they do make progress. The therapists work with the children until they reach a normal level of speech. However, she did warn me that children with this problem progress at a much slower pace than children with other speech delays. We're looking at a long-term project here. But, we have to do what's necessary to help our son.
At least we've gotten the ball rolling. Hopefully we'll be able to get started with all of this soon.
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