BellaOnline Forums Family Special Needs Children speech therapy and twins update

Hey Chele, its me Annmarie. I just thought I would give you an update on my twins. As you may or may not remember, the twins have had serious speech delays. At 3 1/2 they only had a vocabulary of a 12 month old.

I am happy to report that they have been in speech therapy and preschool for 2 months now. And let me tell you the results have been nothing short of a miracle. Both are conversing so that I can actually tell what they want or are saying. They are up to a 2 year old level. I have enrolled them in a summer program for 1 hour per week for 6 weeks.

I just thought I would post for any that may be hesitant to send their children for special services at a young age. My thoughts, the sooner the better. With mine, the goal is to get them at level BEFORE kindergarten and we are on track to do that.

Take care, Annmarie

Annmarie!!

Thank you so much for stopping by and updating us on your twins. It certainly is important to get services for your child, and even if you only suspect something could be up, to absolutely check on. It's better to assist them now than when they are in school. I know too, it is hard some times for parents to see there is a problem, such as speech, because you live with the child and you have adapted to understanding every little grunt and "ughh" where a stranger or family member outside the home always looks to you for the translation. I hope parents and caregivers out there take the time to call their education boards to find out about any programs that test children young, for free, to see if there are any delays.

You are a prime example that the earlier you help your child, no matter the circumstance, the better off the child will be. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Congratulations on their success, and I hope things continue to improve! Please continue to keep us updated.

Thank you again so much for stopping by!

Take care, and I hope you and yours are well.

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We are just finishing up our adoption of our 2yr old Emi. He was a cocaine baby, is doing fantastic developing normaly but his speech is behind. We have him on a waiting list, it takes forever in Canada, even privately is slow. Working with special needs kids, I have found we lack so much in far as programs for these kids, I always keep hoping for improvement. As Annmarie said we also want this helped before he goes to school, he is a book junkie but this is not going to help the reading if we can't catch it early. Good Luck Annmarie, and happy to hear things are going well. Emi has a 4 yr old brother, who has a bad speech problem, also the one yr old is being adopted, will be waiting to see if he has a delay.
Take Care
Dawn

Hi Chele:

I just thought I'd let you know about our oldest granddaughter. She sustained a severe head injury last year, but thanks to the dedicated staff of the National Health Service here in Britain, she's made a 95% recovery.

Her speech center was destroyed but she has learned how to speak again by using the other side of her brain. She's such an incredible six year old!

Take care!

I have a son who is severely/profoundly deaf with speech delays due to the deafness.
One thing I did at home when he was very young (around 2-3 yrs) was to choose 3-5 flash cards with pictures on them and show him the pic while I said the word. First I said it at a normal speed, then I said it slowly, and then again at a normal speed. All the time letting him see my lips. Then he would try to say it. I would give him three tries and even if he didn't show improvement I would clap and cheer and let him hold the card as a reward. I had wondered if he understood that I was teaching names for objects and one day I got my answer. He got so excited he grabbed the card away from me and tried frantically to say the word over and over while pulling me off of the sofa and running into the bathroom and standing on tippy toes put his hand into the sink! Then he ran to the kitchen and did the same thing again! He was right the word was sink. I wasn't trying to teach him to spell, although the word was spelled out on the card. I used the cards because they had cute little cartoon type pictures on them. It occurred to me that if he couldn't hear the name of something he wouldn't know what I was talking about when I said it. Hearing children learn so much from observation. You may say, "Put you plate in the sink." and they learn what you mean because they see you do it over and over. Deaf kids learn the concept but may not know the word(s) unless they are shown and taught. Those flash cards worked wonders for ds and I can't tell you how many times through the years I've been praised by people who work with special needs kids for all of the time and work I've put into ds. So many times when I tell them about the flash cards they say that is a method used in oral schools.
I was just being a parent and doing anything I could think of to help my child.
Speech therapy is great and works wonders but we as parents can do so much at home to suppliment the therapy.
Good luck to all of you. You each sound like wonderful, loving parents. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Dawn!

Thank you so much for stopping by! I'm so sorry it took me FOREVER to say that. Things have been so wild since my kids have been in sports, especially my son who is in the Special Olympics.

Again, thank you so much for stopping by a sharing a little piece of your family. You sound like a very loving and caring woman to share your home with children who want absolutely nothing more than to be loved. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Good luck and please keep in touch!

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OMG Maureen!

She sounds like a great kid! What a lot for her to have gone through. I bet she really didn't think much of anything going on, did she? It's amazing! As adults we see so many things as black and white, and if something like that would have happened to one of us and heard what the doctor had said, we would have probably just have accepted it, and let things be. Kids amaze me every day! They don't know what it means to just quit, they don't even really try, they just do it, you know?

Thank you so much for telling us all about your amazingly wonderful granddaughter. I hope she continues to recover with flying colors. My heart is with you all.

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BellaPagina!! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Talk about wonderful parenting! You sound great, lady. So many parents try so hard to make their child 'normal' and it's parents like us that appreciate what our kids do so much more. It's like I was saying in another post...kids just do it without even thinking and most of the time, their reward is the gleam in our eyes and the smile on our faces.

Here's to you and your child! Keep up the fabulous work and please keep us updated from time to time, won't you? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thank you again for stopping by.

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