I remember a year ago reading the sweetest post on a friends blog about helping her son "find his voice" through speech therapy. It was tender and full of love for a darling little boy and I was touched by the imagery of "finding his voice."
While we do not have a need for Gavin to "find his voice"....he shares that plenty, his way favorite coming in the form of growls...we do have a need for Gavin to "find his words".
He is currently able to day "da da", "uh-oh", and "ruff ruff" for dog. He says ball and bye-bye but uses the "da" sound with different tones. We've tried teaching him sign language and are starting to see some dots connect for him as he just learned two knew ones yesterday. This inability to speak has not taken away his ability to communicate. He jibbers and jabbers all day long and especially loves growling at anyone that comes in our door in a very playful way.
But I've seen his frustration start to build in the last few weeks and I know there is so much in his little mind just waiting to jump out.
Today was his 18 month well check and along with finding out that Gavin is off the charts for height and 85% for weight at 28 pounds 7 ounces (no big surprise that he's a big boy) we also found that he will be able to qualify for in-home speech therapy.
I'm excited to start this journey of helping him find his words. I'm hopeful and optimistic things will come quickly. But more than anything I'm incredibly grateful to be his mother, grateful that he is healthy and strong, grateful for his love, tenderness and playfulness.
His voice is there...and the words will come.
3 comments:
My Zach has had private speech therapy for a couple years and will probably need more once he's in school. I've actually liked having him have a special need because it gives us an excuse to have scheduled,focused one on one time. I'm sure you'll find this too. Have fun with it :)
He sounds like a lot of fun! You guys must love him so much. It's such a fun age. I'm sure he'll be talking a ton soon.
Loved reading this post and learning about Gavin's speech therapy! You will love the process of helping him with this - I have loved it! It's fun, it's educational and it's rewarding. Good news...:)
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