Speech Update

When Graham turned three at the beginning of September, he aged out of the early intervention services.  I planned to take a few months "off" from speech therapy to see if he continued to progress at approximately the same rate as he'd done with services.  If he didn't, I'd put him in private therapy. 

At his last appointment, however, his lovely speech teacher, Bella, suggested I be more proactive in getting him enrolled.  "We've been working really hard, and he's still not getting the consonants at the beginning of his words," she explained.   

So I added, "Coordinate Speech Therapy for Graham" to my to-do list.

Graham & Bella

Perhaps it's a good thing items on my to-do list don't always get accomplished in a timely manner, because a week later Mark came home from a Father-Son outing with Graham and said, "Graham was repeating things I told him in the car and it was really clear!"

Quite literally overnight, Graham had figured out how to put consonants on the beginning of (most of) his words!  I took a quick video to send to Bella and she was super impressed.  

I recognize that he is still delayed.  He struggles with some beginning consonant sounds (like f and s) and blends at the beginning of words, but he's SOOOO much easier to understand.  It's spectacular!

Along with his beginning sounds, he's also trying to figure out how to make words past tense.  I always think this is a hilarious stage in speech development when kids get words wrong, but it makes complete sense where they're coming from.  My favorite of Graham's is when he tells me that Thane "argue-ed" with him (those two have been arguing a lot, and I've been trying to convince Thane that he "shouldn't argue with a three-year old).  I finally had him say it on video.

And in case you're wondering, I crossed "Coordinate Speech Therapy for Graham" off of my to-do list.  We'll re-evaluate in a couple months.