Boy-humor

"R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H, Mommy what does that say?"
"Research"

"I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-E, what is that?"
"Institute"
"haha, you said toot"

A couple days later...

"Mommy, do you remember that word I read that was on the wall behind your head?"
"Research Institute?"
"haha, you said toot"

The minds of boys

Therapy Progression - Speech

Nick's speech is amazing. He is inquisitive and asks about words and why we say different things.
He has the funniest expressions. My favorite right now "I did not see that coming"

He also likes to say bad words. Whisper them really, because he knows they are bad. "What the heck" is the extent of his 'swear words'. And I think that he picked it up from Ninja Turtles (Thanks Raf).
But like I did for the physiotherapy and how far we have come. I want to look at how far Nick has come with his speech.

This is the boy that didn't speak for 2 years.
And I worried and worried. Got him in speech therapy with his sister early, and he just wouldn't speak. He was very happy to just play quietly, watch and listen (and laugh)
It was 18 months before he even started to babble!

(This video is from May 2011)

Katheryn also did speech therapy, and she was Nick's greatest supporter.
There were times that I caught Katheryn coaching Nick to say words "Say Daddy Nick, say da-da-daddy"
Once he started to make sounds you could tell that he was excited to show off! (This video is from July 2011)

Just after Nick turned 2 he would talk, but he wouldn't always answer the question you were asking. Every colour was blue, every number was four. 

And then he finally started to explore his vocabulary (around the same time he got his first wheelchair). And if you watch the video from April 2012 you can hear that attitude and personality that we always knew was in there.

After Nick's words started coming, then it was working on the sounds. But that wasn't really anything new with us. The same sounds Katheryn needed help with, so did Nickolas.

Last year Nick got distracted too easily in group speech therapy. He was quiet and he was shy.

Speech therapy progression showed what we already knew. He is getting more comfortable and overcoming at least part of his shyness. And he wants to work on his sounds.

L is a big one. Leo Leads. And you can correct him, he will try again to make the right sound. He wants to speak well.

Now he sings, he has favorite songs. This is a video of his favorite song "R-E-D red"

We have made up some other songs, but this one is his favorite, and he will sing it LOUDLY, if he sees anything in the song (i.e. firetrucks).

And recently he has an O-R-A-N-G-E song (which of course is helping with his spelling as well)

When Nick was 18 months old and I worried so much about his language, I had a number of fellow parents (of older kids) who told me it will come. It was really hard to believe them at the time!

Ninja Turtles and Speech Therapy

Who knew that Ninja Turtles can have such a great impact on speech.

Nick has been taking speech therapy to help with a number of letter sounds.
Remember that this is the boy that didn't speak more than 10 words until he was 2 years old.
While Nick's speech did explode (around the time he got his first wheelchair), he has consistently had difficulties with specific sounds.

He really doesn't want to practice sounds.
"I already did that"

The big ones have been L and K sounds.
We've been looking at ways to get Nick to continue to work on sounds without getting frustrated.

Leonardo Loves to Lead
Let's go!

"K"owabunga!
MicKey
ChucKs
BooyaKasha

I talked to his speech therapist from last year and she said how well Nick is doing and just spontaneously making the right sounds.

I guess, like everything, Nick has decided for himself what he wants to do, and so he's doing it

Happy Talk

In all the excitement before our vacation I forgot to blog about our speech reassessment.

Nickolas did great!!!

We played bunny bowling - which he loved, of course!
And he talked and talked and talked.

Even his pronunciation right now is good. We just have to continue to work with him on the things we are working with Katheryn. Only Nickolas is age appropriate to be working on it (Katheryn is not).
Speech with Nickolas is one thing right now that I feel we have a good handle on.

He was not discharged at this time from speech. But maybe in 6 months when he is reassessed? He'll age out in 18 months anyways (like Katheryn is going to do within the year).

Sabrina (our S/L) didn't re-test him, she said that if he did the exact same as he did on his test last time he would still be age appropriate!
If I had heard this one year ago I'm not sure I would have believed it!
How fast he has caught up with his speech.
Every day he is still come up with more and more words and phrases. I'm still sometimes shocked with the knowledge and awareness that comes out of his mouth. And he is always saying things to make people smile.

My newest favorite words to hear from Nickolas?
I love you
Nickolas is a very loving child. Nick right now is on a "I love you" kick. Every night before bed, "I love you mommy, I love you daddy, I love you katara (Katheryn), I love you hammie (Sammie - our dog)". Katheryn was never this expressive with her 'I love you'.

It melts my heart.

We have a spy!

I think that Nickolas comes down in the middle of the night and reads my blog posts and concerns.
And then saves it all up!

After the last post about my feelings having the wheelchair in the house (where I feel it is important to work on walking), and I also realized that it does have benefits in that it gives Nickolas an opportunity to 'play' with his new wheelchair.
But I still put that chair in the van yesterday morning.

Today we went out to Walmart - just the 2 of us, to take it for a test run.
Nick just blew me away with how competent he was to make his chair take him where he wanted to go!
I think that trial period in the house was just what he needed!

I love being proved wrong like this!

And he's talking up a storm as well!

Average

Who ever thought I'd be happy with average.
But I am! I'm ecstatic about average!

We had our reassessment for speech therapy this week.
Nickolas blew Sabrina away.
She was able to do some testing with pictures and stuff to score where he falls. This wasn't even an option last time when Nick wasn't saying anything.
Nickolas falls above average for his age in comprehension. And exactly average for his age in expression.
So we don't qualify for speech therapy this session and we reassess in August.

We have fine tuning to do - but we already did all that learning with Katheryn (who gets reassessed by Sabrina next month).

I can't believe how far Nickolas has come. From November when he was still only saying 5 or 6 words to now he was over 100 words easy. And sentences, multiple word sentences. That you can understand!

I'm a little disappointed that we can't work on pronunciation right now. But at the same time, that frees up some time every week that we already have physiotherapy, and conductive education starting next month. So one less therapy isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Now we just have to figure out where Katheryn is.

What's new?

Last family day we had some big accomplishments - STANDING!

I will always, always have a special place in my heart for this holiday!

This family day we are a little lower-keyed. Just so much has happened in the past year! We were just beginning to stand then, now we are walking with the walker (or holding hands), wheeling with a chair (calmly), climbing up stairs..

... and our newest accomplishment (and something I had as a goal for physio) climbing down stairs!

I'm not too sure if this is a good thing or not.

Yes it is. I know it is.
Nick can climb up those stairs like it's nothing. I turn around and he's upstairs getting into trouble with his sister. Then she comes downstairs for something, and there he is at the top of the stairs crying for help.
So we've worked on giving him the knowledge and ability to get down the stairs himself.
The slow way.

He's already learned the fast way - and got a black eye and some scared parents in the process.
He'll still start to go down head first, and then we have to remind him to turn around and go down bum first. I imagine it is difficult for him. He can't see, can't feel when his foot is on the step and yet he still does it.

His language is also our greatest challenge.
Sometimes I think Nick is joking and other times I wonder.
Does he know his colours? Is he screwing with me?
He still calls everything blue. Does he thinking everything is the colour blue?
No means yes. What about counting?
We've been working on counting 1-10, sometimes I think he gets it. Other times I'm not sure. Again, he gets stuck on some numbers. Calls everything four, six. And smiles that little smile of his!

But like looking back at last family day. And look at us now, I need to look back at 6 months ago, even 3 months ago! Nick wasn't saying anything last summer. He was making the motions with the supportive walker. Not even close to taking independent steps!
And no words. No mommy, (Or ma, as he's saying now).

So this family day I want to sit back and watch my family be together. And be amazed at just where we are now.
Tomorrow I can worry about something else!