I was checking out Mimi's blog about Jqn going to a speech therapist.
Most states have an early intervention program for children under 3 that may have development, medical, mental, and/or learning disabilities. That's how AJ was referred for speech therapy... because of his glaucoma.
What did we learn? we learned about ourselves actually. I think that I had these expectations that therapy was the magic pill ...I realized therapy was to enhance our parenting skills. we also realized that we weren't allowing him to grow.. to challenge himself. we were being so extra careful in making sure he was safe..and that he wouldn't want for anything. It took other people outside of our village to tell us that we were good parents.. but that we did such a good job that AJ did not need to communicate. why should he express his needs when we did everything for him?
Our first priority was AJ's eyesight ...so who cared if he didn't talk? I didn't.
I think when they told me he needed a speech eval.. i thought ok... time to tackle that because he was a pretty quiet baby.
What else did we learn? it was time to take away the pacifier. The therapist said... when he has it in his mouth ..he can't talk. made sense..even though we love pacifiers because then no crying.
she also said use different containers for drinking so that baby can experience different ways of using the mouth (tactile stimuli) ... use straws. use sippy cups. small cups.. big cups.. wide rimmed cups.
she also said explain in detail the world around you. I realized that I wasn't doing this... i was taking communication with AJ for granted. I wasn't telling him the leaves on the big brown tree are green... or that the sky is blue.
what else did we learn? actual therapy is child's play. i mean... literally... it looks like child's play. i observed the first session AJ had. AJ is shy so it took 20 minutes for him to warm up to the therapist. then all she did was engage AJ into bubble blowing. she blew out her cheeks to exaggerate how big the bubbles get.. and she would say 'pop' as she and AJ popped the bubbles.
what else did we learn? not to take too much of what the 'experts' said to heart. at one parent/therapist conference, we were told that he was communicating at approx a 9 month old level when he was already past 2 yrs old. Joe didn't appreciate that.
