Speech Therapy - 8/29

SLP -"Peanut, what do you want to do? Do you want to go to the park or go eat?"

Peanut - "Eat lunch!"

This is such a good example of how Peanut is changing. He is making two word sentences with words that aren't being optioned for him. And sometimes he will even throw a 3rd word in there just to impress us. It used to be that he would only put two words together that he was repeating directly after optioned but now he is taking the choices and words he hears and pulling out words that he knows to make his own statements. It is so awesome.

He sang Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle for his SLP and she was so impressed. They just played and talked for the hour and he was attentive and cooperative even though he is snotty today. His mood and concentration were where he needed to be to have a productive session.

We are still working with the pacing card and at the suggestion of the SLP I am going to see if I can make a leather bracelet that has three or four pacing squares on it so that he can use it whenever he needs it even if we don't have the card around. It really helps him to slow down his words and get them all out and clear. "iwannnannana" becomes " I want nana (banana)". The more he uses it, the better he gets.

His SLP continues to be impressed with the changes that have come over him in the last 3 weeks while on the HFCS-free diet and fish-oil supplements. I asked her if she really thought it was a big difference because I worry about the placebo affect and she pointed out that normally when he would make progress in one area, he would backtrack in another. He might get 4 new words but then lose 2 of the words he already had. This has been a different type of progress where it has been giant leaps forward without any sign of the backsliding we are used to.

We are working on putting together a word-book for him to use at school for people who aren't used to his pronunciations. We want him to be able to communicate well and without frustration as much as possible so giving him pictures to point to if people don't understand is one option for him. We will just have to wait and see if he needs it and uses it.

Pacing Card

We have started to try something new and it is exciting to be able to work with Peanut successfully on sentences instead of just words. When I ask him to say "Go to school" he will usually reply " Doe school" but yesterday he started saying "Go" with the hard g really well so I tried the sentence again and got "Go school". Then I pulled out the pacing card and pointed a black square for each word. "Go...To...School". Then tries it and points to a square for each word. As he does this he gets each word even if there is a pause between words. We did this for as long as he was interested. About 20 minutes later I asked him to say "Go to school" without the pacing card and he replied easily "Go to school". I only got all 3 words one time but I got it!! Success!

Here is what our pacing card looks like. Who knew that something so simple would be able to help him.

A World of Difference - Speech Therapy Session 8/22

Today's speech session was brilliant (at least for the first 40 minutes). Peanut showed off his new words, got pronunciations we have been working on for weeks and tried brand new words successfully at random and when he didn't get the right tongue position, he fixed it really quickly and on his own. His speech therapist kept looking at me with this expression that said "did you switch kids on me?". Last week, he used his speech therapists name for the first time ever but it took us the entire session to figure out that was what he was saying. He was calling her "ninny" for Christine and today when he was leaving he simply said "Bye Ninnine. See you".

The last 20 minutes was spent in a typical 2 year old shut down where he would only shake his head or answer no when we asked him to play. Then at the very end, he started reading his favorite book Pout Pout Fish with his SLP and he opened up again. It was fine although I hate to waste any time of the 60 minutes a week we get for his speech therapy.

Papa Bear and I were discussing his progress at dinner and we just really feel strongly that this awesome progress in just one week isn't random. It is either the increased fish oil supplement (we doubled his dosage) or the removal of the HFCS and other modified corn products or a combination of both. We are so excited and proud of our little Peanut.

I started reading a book called "What's Eating Your Child?" and it is really opening my eyes to a lot of things. These foods or lack of nutrition (fish oil) isn't what is causing his apraxia, but apraxia is a neurological issue. Keeping his brain clear of anything that isn't beneficial for growth and adding safe supplements that aid in brain development seem like a sure way to aid in his treatment.

Done, Gone and Now but no Milk for you

Peanut has added 3 very important words to his vocabulary, "gone", "done" and "now". The reason that these words are so important is because they are so generic and can really help him communicate what he needs and wants to other people. He uses them all the time and sounds like a little dictator with his new found vocabulary. "Wa Wa Now, Mama!" So we are encouraging his manners and making him add "please" but we are so secretly excited about his dictatorial ways that we don't really mind. After Papa Bear goes to work he marches around the house exclaiming "Papa gone." His "gone" does sound similar to "done" as he can't get the hard g sound at the beginning of words on a regular basis unless it is tapped out and segmented but it easy to know which he means based on the context of what he is saying. (easy for me anyway, I don't know about others).

He did lose a word/sound with all of this other progress. He used to say "milk" beautifully. But as he drove through our pretend McDonalds drive-thru on his bus ride-on toy he was all of a sudden requesting a "bulkbake" instead of a "milkshake". I tried but couldn't get him to use the "mmm" sound at the begining of the word even when segmenting it and tapping it out. I am going to bring this up at his next speech therapy session on Monday.

Peanut has been corn-free for about a week now. I have seen some progress in his speech but I think that we are facing a detox time because he has been cranky and whiney more than normal and is asking to take his nap earlier and earlier. I think that coming off of high-fructose corn syrup just took a toll on his sugar levels. We are sticking it out and thinking that even if it doesn't help his apraxia, it is healthier to not have the large amounts of high-fructose corn syrup that was in everything from his cereal, yogurt, maple syrup, ketchup etc.

August 15th - SLP

Peanut is having difficulty transitioning from nasal sounds to a closed soft palate sound and he is still having a lot of trouble starting words with tongue tip sounds. Top becomes bop and tap becomes bap. But if we "tap it out" by hitting our legs or the table to the different sounds he becomes much more adept at joining these sounds. So we are going to be tapping out just about everything that he can't say and my hope is that this will be something that his teacher can fall back on at pre-school if she doesn't understand what he is saying. Maybe asking him to "tap it out" will give her the sounds that she needs to piece together what he needs. We are also focusing on those generic statements like "I want" and "I need" and "One more" so that he can fall back on these when trying to talk to people who don't understand him.

Progress - he is putting so many two word sentences together on his own that we are really trying to push him to get 3 words now. He is very good and clear on the ritual sentences like "Night Night, love you Mama" 5 words that are clear and beautiful to my ears because they are part of his routine. We just have to get more and more words into his routine like this to help him grow.

Next up - working on "w" rounding sound in "want" and "whoops", keep "tapping it out" and get the "g" sound in "go" and "gone".

Homeopathic Visit

We had an opportunity to take Peanut to see a homeopathic pediatrician to see if she had any suggestions to help treat his apraxia or alternate ways to help his body. The jury is still out but she made some suggestions that even if it doesn't help him with the apraxia we recognize that they are changes we should make for health reasons anyway.

Her first suggestion is that we eliminate corn from his diet. I think she made this suggestion after seeing me hand him a fruit snack gummy treat to keep him happy during the 90 minute visit. (Again, I am a doubting Thomas and don't trust easily at all which is why my mind goes straight to this reasoning rather than her discerning this from any actual medical experience, homeopathic or not). But we do need to cut down on the amount of foods that have high fructose corn syrup in them. So we have started a food journal to see exactly how much corn (ie corn syrup) he is getting and then we will know where we need to start eliminating. I am not sure I am going to cut corn in the pure, true form but I will cut it out in any type of processed form ie corn meal, starch, syrup etc.

Her second suggestion was to add a probiotic to his system/diet and to increase the amount of the Omega 3's he is getting from his supplements. Those are also healthy and good for him suggestions and rather easy to implement. Again, these are also suggestions that I would give to any parent of an average, healthy child.

The third suggestion was to take 2 different homeopathic medicines, one for vaccines and one for his brain (corpus collosum). I don't know what is in these medicines and all I could gather from her is that they are homeopathic remedies (no kidding). So I am not going to give these to him for now. (doubting thomas and all of that).

I will try to give periodic updates on how we change his diet and how it affects him overall.

We are supposed to have a follow up visit in 5 weeks but the jury is out on if we will go back for a $100 visit that will last 30 minutes.