Speech Lady

One of the hardest things about autism, and I think this causes more problems than anything else, is my sons speech capabilities.

The way the big guy talks, when he does use words, is he mostly uses the middle of the word, not the beginning or the end of the word. So when he would say the word five, it would come out as "iv", kind of like the word eye with a V at the end. So you get the idea about how he forms his words.

We have had him in speech therapy since about August of 2010, and let me tell you about the changes. First let me back up a bit and explain the way he was before speech therapy. He didn’t say anything, really, nothing at all. His vocalizations up to that point we grunts, scream, and cries, but not words. Up till the age of four years mom had heard him say only one word, "no", and I had only heard him say one word, "mom". So this was the extent of his vocabulary, and after we heard him say those words, we did not hear them again for what seemed like an eternity.

Now it is much better, totally different, and very cute at times. Now he says things like "momma" for mom, "nanah" for nana/grandma, "dahdee" for daddy, he says many other things now, like whoa, and yes, and uhuh, and then the ultimate "NO". He seems to favor "NO" above all else. This is the beginning of his verbal communication to us, and the outside world, and it has become a huge help. The reason he has progressed so far is because of speech therapy, and I'm sure his growing up and going to school has much to do with it.

The one thing that has done the best for him is his speech therapist, ha has been seeing her since he started speech therapy, and he loves her like crazy (though I think it because she has blond hair). He first started going to place that was really cool, I saw was because it's closed now, but the place was awesome. He had speech therapy there, and occupational therapy there, and they had all these cool toys he could play with.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the place closed down very abruptly, and he did not have almost any kind of therapy for a while. He still went to another place for his ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapy, but he didn't have speech therapy for a long time, and it showed in the way he would talk to us. So the lady that worked at his old therapy place was able to set it up to where she would come to the house and do his therapy in-house, which he totally dug on. The first day I don't think he got anything done because he was showing her his room and all his toys.

The whole reason I bring all this up is his speech therapist was over yesterday, and his ABA therapist came by today. What his speech therapist said was he was adding more beginning sounds to words, and more ending sounds to words, though he wanted to add more of the beginning sounds rather than the ending sounds. It was also cute because she had him say "My Bear", and it's always awesome when he put TWO words together, and he said it so cute as well. I just love hearing his little voice. When I was leaving today he was doing the ABA therapy, and he was doing some counting, I wasn't really listening, but I heard him around 5, and listened as he continued to 9. Now, it was mostly just the middle of the word, but the important thing is he got them in order, and he knows the basis for the words. I just kind of paused at the door while he was counting, it was so cool. And I have the speech therapist to thank for this, well, all of them really, but the speech therapist has been with him the longest.

Truthfully, anyone with a child with autism, or even any other speech problems, can truly benefit from therapy. It totally works, and I really think it works best when the therapist does not change for a long amount of time. I have seen the big guy go from one occupational therapist to another; mostly because of they were under contract for a short period of time, so he never got the same kind of connection to his speech lady. Some of the OP therapists he has hated, and others he has been OK with. He also he may have had some bad days with his speech lady, but he has had way more good days with her as well.

I honestly think if she had not cared so much for the big guy, he would not have come as far as he has. So, thank you speech lady, you know who you are.