Speech

Hi! Hi! Hi! (as Noah would say)
Noah saw the speech pathologist again today. She did a full eval of his language cognition and speech production. Fortunately he is only about 25% delayed in the language part which is only one standard deviation from normal and not statistically significant enough to qualify for Early Access. However, she does think that he is significantly delayed in speech and will try to get him early access for speech production. This would be monthly visits and specific exercises to work on in speech production. Their exercises are geared for kids his age through playtime and toys, and are not structured rigid lessons like you may be thinking of.

Right now we are focusing on "w" questions (I don't mean questions about the current pres, although I do have many-ha!) -who, what, when, where, why and how (even though how does not start with a w). Also, "p" sounds. These are two areas that he is behind in and needs to be challenged to learn these skills. He does understand and use "where" everyday. Cognitively, he understands many of the other "w" questions and understands words with p's, but it is the production of this information that he is struggling with. He is also using a common error pattern called assimilation which means he is replacing the correct consonant with another consonant in the word. For instance, he now says his name "Woa-wa" instead of "Noah" because he is focusing on the "w" sound that the "oa" combination makes. He also does this with "all done" and it is said, "all none."

That is all I have to update you with. Bye-bye! (one of "Woa-wa's" favorites;)