Compliment?

I was tucking Michael into bed tonight and told him in a rather sappy voice, "Goodnight, Little One. I love you." In a rather sappy voice, he returned, "Goodnight, Little One....I mean Big One. I love you too."

Updates - ENT and Lost Opportunity

Well, I don't know if any of you encountered the huge winter storm that went through a third of the country this week, but we were pretty much center stage. We had 12 hours or so of freezing rain / sleet on the very day of our ENT appointment. Needless to say, we've rescheduled. Now we're going to try next Tuesday instead.

It seems like such a pointless endeavor. Ava is going to hate it. We might not find out anything useful at all. And I feel like she can hear - why am I even putting us through this? Surely her receptive language wouldn't be pretty much normal if she had a hearing loss. Surely she wouldn't ask about the car driving by outside, or the big bang (caused by her brother) from the other room if she can't hear.

On the other hand, she hangs out right in front of the television when it is on. Occasionally she doesn't respond to her name or a request (What child doesn't?). And we need to be sure there isn't some subtle kind of hearing loss that could be affecting her understanding of speech and the various speech sounds. I would feel pretty silly if I spent all this time worrying about apraxia to later discover it's something entirely different. We just have to be sure. It looks like apraxia. In fact, it looks more and more like apraxia every day. But I have to eliminate other possibilities. And so we'll try the ENT. Wish me luck. (Difficult child. Grumble, grumble.)

I also posted the other night about my mis-communication with the local apraxia expert. We'll call her Ms. J. Well, I got lucky there. At first, she did tell me that she had filled her appointment slots. I wrote back to her with a very nice email asking her to let me know if any were open for her next clinic weekend and apologizing again for the mix-up. She wrote back and offered me a early morning appointment at 8am. She was willing to come in early just to see us. Since Ava and Michael have taken to waking up at about 6:20 in the morning these days, getting to an 8am appointment is easy. I was grateful she offered and I'm so excited. I'll let you know how things go and what Ms. J thinks of Ava's speech after we meet with her.

Book Review – The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn’t Talking Yet

This is a review of The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn’t Talking Yet by Marilyn Agin, Lisa Geng, and Malcolm Nicholl. Marilyn Agin is a developmental pediatrician that specializes in apraxia and Lisa Geng is a mother of two late talkers. This book’s target audience is parents, not professionals. They want to educate parents of toddlers who are late talkers. Their first chapter is a brief overview of normal speech development and the second talks about the consequences of speech delays. The third chapter briefly introduces you to speech disorders in general and Childhood Apraxia of Speech in particular. These first three chapters are a well written overview of the background information you need to know in order to understand what exactly the problem is with your child’s speech and why it matters.

Next the book begins to go into what you can do about it. Chapter four is about the various professionals you will meet when you begin to try to get help: developmental pediatricians, speech-language pathologists, pediatric neurologists, etc. Chapter 5 is about getting the right kinds of therapy. Chapter 6 is about insurance. Chapter 7 is about things you can do at home (several good ideas here). Chapter 8 is about fish oil supplementation. Chapter 9 is about your child’s frustration and how you can cope with it. Chapter 10 is about your frustration and fears as a parent and how to cope. Chapter 11 is a summary.

Pretty much every chapter covers a topic that is interesting as a parent who is dealing with a child who is a late talker. I highly recommend the book. I think it is a great place to start if you’re just beginning to research. I think it can be a useful review that might hit some areas you’re unfamiliar with even if you’ve been looking into CAS for a while.

If you have a Kindle, or a smartphone that runs Kindle, you can download a sample of this book for free. If I remember correctly, the sample includes the introduction and maybe even the first chapter. I was able to get the book through my local library. Even if I had purchased it, I would have felt it was money well spent. I also saw the book at my local Barnes and Noble. So it is pretty easy to get your hands on a copy of this book if you are interested.

If you've read it, or go out and read it, let me know what you think.