speech

I ran in to another mom who knew Wyatt when I picked him up last week. She said he was really friendly.  Another woman in Trader Joe's told me today that Wyatt is very sweet.  He is in fact, being really sweet today.  I think sleeping in to 7:15 helped everyone's mood.  He only started to lose it at about 1 and we are trying to get him to take a nap.  He is also wearing underwear, but really fought me over sitting on the potty.  I have concluded he needs more sleep.  Or maybe just more fun. 

We made scrambled eggs this morning.  He cracked the eggs.  We got big sheets of paper and I traced him.  I drew a dragon.  A dragon with a village on fire with people fleeing.  Wyatt asked for the people to be running.  I reflected on my parenting skills at drawing a village being destroyed by a dragon and then moved on.  My villagers look like they are doing tai chi anyway.

This past Thursday, Ms. Graham, Wyatt's teacher, said she wanted to schedule a time to talk to me about Wyatt.  I asked about what, but she didn't want to say in front of Wyatt.  Wyatt refused to leave my side so I couldn't get anything out of her.  We made an appointment to talk the next day, but I KNEW I would freak out until I knew.  I figured he was hitting, biting, has ADHD, was cognitively behind, said a bad word maybe. 

I asked her to write down something, which she interpreted as writing down when and what time we were meeting.  I said that I wanted her to write down what her concern was so I had some idea and that I am the type to obsess about that type of thing.  So, we finally got another teacher to read to Wyatt and she told me she was concerned about his speech.  They had just gotten some materials or something and he seemed behind. 

I tried hard not to roll my eyes. 

I told her about craniofacial and the school district testing.  She told me that she had a hard time understanding him and felt bad she had to keep asking him to repeat himself.  I have to admit I have been having more trouble understanding him lately.  That I can take seriously.

I was transported back to Dr. Baker and the MR discussion.  I asked if she had cognitive concerns and she did not.  She talked about how wonderfully empathetic he is, and muscial and how he got the sound of the week faster than the other "friends" his age.  He was making friends in the class, particularly an older "friend" Abraham.

They are offering speech screenings at school for $25 and we would be getting a letter.  I decided to contact one of the speech therapists at Kaiser Craniofacial Clinic.   Erin read Wyatt's last report and concluded he was kind of border and that he is most likely in the range of normal, particularly for a cleft palate kid.  She said the school was probably doing a screen and flag.  Those flagged would be referred for further evaluation.  She thought Wyatt would be flagged most likely and have another evaluation recommended.  She said we should just bring him in to Kaiser.

She said if there were language issues, like with how he constructs sentences and his receptive and expressive language we should see a speech language pathologist.  They don't have one in craniofacial, but she could refer us to Pediatric Rehab.  So, I took the evaluation.  I have actually always wanted him evaluated by a SLP.  From what I have read they can really assess oral motor tone issues.  I think Stacy the OT kind of did that too, but I feel like the SLP is REALLY the authority.

I also mentioned Wyatt's ear "bug."  She said maybe the tube that was in his ear canal was bothering him.  She gave me a referral to Head and Neck.

Ms. Graham also mentioned gross motor issues.  So I contacted Sharon White, Wyatt's old PT.  I explained Wyatt going up and down the stairs.  She said what I described sounded fine as it is pretty variable at his age, but she is always happy to see Wyatt.  I said I would think about it.

I am oddly fine with starting evaluations again.  It was nice to have a break from it, but both Rus and I have to admit that Wyatt seems harder to understand as his vocabulary expands.

Wyatt has been doing some very interesting things lately.  He can really count objects now.  He's showing a lot of interest in writing letters, but he doesn't know any other than O yet.  He get's pretty frustrated with it.  He drew a mouth, eyes and nose today, but they all kind of overlapped one another.  I have been trying to work with him on drawing people.  When we were leaving for work last week he told me he saw a dragon cloud. We have started using scissors now.  Apparently, he also uses them at school and loves them.

I can hear from above that Wyatt did not go to sleep so I better get back up there.