My little guy just had his six month EI meeting to review his progress. Overall, he’s moving forward and closing the developmental gap, but he’s not quite there yet. Some areas he’s really taking off, other areas he needs some more work.

Fine Motor:  This is the area he improved the most. Before he had very little hand strength, and couldn’t even grasp a crayon! Now he can hold a crayon and scribble like a champ. He uses both hands together to manipulate toys. He has enough hand strength to swing from the bars at gymnastics. None of that was possible six months ago. He and I worked so hard on this during the Fall and Winter, and he’s finally catching up!

Look at those scribbles!
Look at those scribbles!

Sensory: Sensory drives me nuts. One day he sits perfectly still and enjoys an activity like play-doh. The next day the same activity sends him screaming. It’s difficult at this age to know if he’s just being a typical two-year-old, or if he has sensory issues. At gymnastics class, he definitely responds differently than the rest of the kiddos the same age. They love to jump in the foam pit and get hand stamps at the end of class. He doesn’t, and often bolts for the door. I try to remember he had developmental delays and is still catching up. Hopefully, in time, he’ll work through this.

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Speech: This is the area he’s the most delayed. He’s making progress, one sound at a time. At two- years-old, he should be saying at least 50 words,two-word phrases, and trying out three-word phrases. He does have about 50 words, but they are not clear. Really, I’m the only one who can understand him. I feel like his interpreter for his speech therapist, my mom, and even my husband at times. As for phrases, I can count the few times he has said two-word phrases, and he has never said a three -word phrase.

He’s still ahead with receptive language and understands complex directions. It’s expressive speech that is the challenge. Speech therapy has been slow, incremental progress. I spent one afternoon saying the word “here” for what seemed like a hundred times. He finally said the words “mama here.” I was so excited I ran in there and he laughed, amused that it brought mommy running to him. Then he ran to the next room and said, “mama here.”  I followed and he laughed again. He finally seemed to understand the purpose of expressive speech.

I’m hoping his speech takes off soon. I try to balance patience with pushing him to make progress. His speech therapist thinks he is making decent progress, but he will likely have difficulty with speech clarity later. I’ll worry about that once we get him talking more. Speech is frustrating for me because I really want to know what he is thinking, feeling, and to help him when he’s upset. So just like we threw ourselves into physical therapy with him as a baby, feeding therapy at one year- old, and fine motor therapy at 18-months. We are going to put all our energy into speech therapy now that he is two years- old, and hope our sweet, rambunctious boy makes the progress he needs to thrive.