Ava has been making progress quickly. It’s a blessing I am truly grateful for. However, an interesting side effect is that people (family, friends) are beginning to ask me if I perhaps over-reacted. Perhaps Ava is just a late talker after all. Perhaps she’ll catch up just like Michael did. Ava's swift progress combined with questions from others and the reluctance from other professionals to officially diagnose began to make me doubt myself.
So I went to our home videos. I wanted to compare Ava’s speech now (about two months after she first started making progress) to Michael’s speech at that same point – two months after he first started making progress. That would be when he was about 18-19 months old. It was interesting. Most of the time his speech sounded very much like Ava’s speech right now. He didn’t have any final consonants either. He was using mostly one word utterances. But, and this is a big but, when he did combine words he easily put two to three words together. Neither word sounded exactly like the adult version of the word, but they were combined easily and you could tell them apart. You could tell that he was saying two different words and combining them with no difficulty. That is a huge contrast with Ava. She has to work to try to combine words. When she tries they usually all come out the same. This is not typical.
Michael did not develop on a typical timeline, and his early history was atypical, but once things finally got started they followed a typical developmental pattern. That is a late talker. That is a delay, not a disorder. Ava is different. She needed therapy (and possibly fish oil supplementation) to get started. And now that things are started, the development does not look typical. This is disorder, not a delay. I don’t know yet what the future holds for her. The great progress so far gives me hope that her disorder (suspected CAS) is on the milder end of the spectrum. I am sure, however, that this is a disorder and not a delay. I am not over-reacting. I will continue to do everything in my power to help her. Both my professional and my mama instincts tell me that. And my research confirms it.
Yes to your post. I go through the same thing. I second guess myself, others question me, but I know what is going on. I see the look when my son it trying to bring a word to his lips and just can't find it. It is a disorder which can be overcome. The speech therapist where my son had his cleft repaired said CAS is a hard to diagnose disorder. It is more of an elimination thing. Run through the... is it this, is it that... well if it is none of the above then it may be apraxia. Keep doing what you are doing because really, regardless of how our children develop this is an important time and treating for Apraxia now is important.
ReplyDelete