Speech Therapy

I've been wanting to do a post about our speech journey this summer with Riley but I kept putting it off.

Here it is...(warning: it's long)

At Riley's 18 month check up in February she scored right on the border for not having developed enough with her speech. At that time she had about 3 words other than Mama or Dada. Her pediatrician gave us the option of waiting to see if she would progress or going ahead and starting therapy. At that time I decided to wait. Since her big sister, Avery has always been a very articulate talker, we thought maybe that had something to do with her underdevelopment - so we decided to wait.

In July, after 5 months of not noticing a dramatic improvement, we started the process of checking into a "reason" why. Her pediatrician said we had to start with a hearing test. We went to the ECU Speech and Hearing center at Pitt Memorial Hospital. The office was great and super nice during the 2 trips we had to make there. Each appointment lasted about an hour which included a sound proof booth exam - where Riley had to respond to different sounds. She was SO GOOD. She cooperated like a champ and sat on my lap during it all and was very patient. I was so proud because it could have been just the opposite.

Her results were within normal limits. Even though she hears a little less out of one of her ears due to some middle ear fluid. Hopefully this will be resolved as she grows but it's nothing serious enough to do anything about.

We decided to find a speech therapist that we could get an opinion from and see if they thought therapy would be a good thing for Riley. After being evaluated by a speech therapist, we decided to go ahead and start. We went with Theraputic Innovations, not far from our house and saw Virginia. She really thought Riley would benefit from therapy and encouraged us in that Riley is on target for development other than speech - she understands well and carries out commands at the appropriate level for her age.

During therapy Virginia would basically play with Riley. She would try to get her to make a "sound" for things she wanted and Riley did amazingly well. We aren't really sure what you would call the "sounds" she makes - they are more like grunts with her mouth closed. She does this weird thing where she will grunt the syllables too. So strange.

Anyway, after 6 sessions, we talked to Riley's pediatrician and the speech therapist and came to the conclusion that we would stop therapy. It's been a tough decision but there were many factors we weighed and hopefully this will be the right one. First of all, while sitting in on the therapy sessions, I learned a lot about what to do with Riley and how to make her communicate more. We were paying a copay every time we went to therapy and it was a lot of money for her to not be showing any progress. Second, she started preschool and will be going 2 days a week. This is probably the biggest factor which we all hope will help her progress. And third, Virginia said she just might not be ready. We be pushing her to do something that will come naturally in the next few months. 

So, now we will wait. According to "normal" - Riley should have a huge vocabulary right now and she should be putting words together and forming short sentences. We are getting there. Just this week she started saying "No, No, Mama". It's so cute! She also said "ye, ye" like "Bye, Bye" but without the "B". That was huge! Right now, this is her list of words:

Lelo = Yellow
Bubble
Juice
Shoe
Elo = Hello
Lela = Umbrella
Go
Ease = Please
No
Mama
Dada
Papa

I know she'll talk - eventually, because there is no physical reason that her speech is so delayed. For now, we'll try to enjoy the way she does communicate and it will make those first big words that much sweeter...I hope!

Riley Kate in the words of your speech therapist "You are a mystery!" but we are hanging in there with you! We can't wait until you say things like "love you" or even call your sister by her name or any name for that matter! :)