speech & development

First experience with the speech folks went pretty well. They picked up on the speech issues pretty quickly.


What Carter is doing with his words is adding "gah and/or kah" where it doesn't belong. A few examples:

• ackle for apple
• Hangah for Hannah
• nanga for banana

He also tends to say what something does instead of saying the name of the item. A few examples:

• Banana is nanga-peel
• soda is soda-spill
• hammer is nail-nail

The developmental issue was harder for them to get a "score" on because he is "so busy." Which basically boils down to the fact that he is attention-deficit. He has that compulsive urge to wonder about looking at what he want and he isn't hearing and absorbing the information he is being given.

Our next step will be a meeting to discuss what they found during this study and to discuss any services that Carter will qualify for. He may possibly qualify for the Head Start Program, etc.

At home we will be working on:

• Clapping out our words so that we are slowing down and providing better articulation when we are teaching him
• Bringing items to our face to talk about them and speaking slowly and clearly. This will help him to look at our face and get his attention
• Practicing sounds and using our lips to show him "pppp, Apple." etc...

behavior modification...for everyone

We had our second visit today with the behavior clinic at our local children's hospital. It was a good visit and we received a lot of tips and advice on what to do with Carter. She refers to him as a more "spirited" child and because of this Tom and I need to modify the way that we parent. Once we modify the way be parent we should then see the effects the change has on Carter. Somethings she said we are currently doing so no change is needed. Other things we need to do that we are not currently doing. I'm a little anxious about the whole process but more so to see if this helps with the oppositional behavior.

Things we'll be working on:

• Praising quiet play and telling him "Carter thank you so much for playing quietly, you're doing such a good job rolling your truck." This will affirm his behavior when he's behaving well and also help him with his speech/development to show him you're rolling a truck.Which also means quiet time is no longer time for washing dishes or throwing a load of laundry in. We will need to be near him, watching what he is doing and praising the quiet, good behavior.
• Ignoring bad behavior. For instance if Carter is rolling a truck you praise him for doing a good job but if he then begins to bang his truck into the wall you ignore him. When he plays nicely again you then praise him for doing a good job.
• Forcing him to work through his anxiety. When he doesn't want to go to the bathroom because it is "yucky" we force him to sit on the toilet any ways. This was one we currently do but can also be applied to other compulsive behavior. He has a tendency to do things in a certain way and she said that we should encourage him to get out of those behaviors as well. For example he puts all of his cars away and then puts the animal toys away last. We need to help him to push through having things in a certain order.
• Avoid using "no, don't, stop, behave, gentle" words. Instead if he's touching things you tell him to put his hands in his pockets or in his lap. This way you are giving him a specific direction to take instead of telling him he can't do something.
• No yelling, this one is obvious but is sometimes hard to achieve.
• Work on timeouts taking place on a chair or special spot as opposed to sending him to his room.
• Don't phrase things as a question but as a command. Instead of saying things like: "I think, we should, lets" you would say: "It is time to clean up" and then follow it with a certain task, "put the blocks in the bucket."
• Never give more than one command at a time as that will cause confusion and don't give too many commands so that he feels like he is constantly being corrected.
• Never use complex words that he will not understand, simple, short words are best.
• Be consistent.

I think this will be good. While some of these behavior changes are obvious, unless you hear it from someone you may not notice that the way you are phrasing your words can be an issue.

If this doesn't help and we are still receiving a lot of opposition we will be venturing down a different path.

To be continued next Friday...

another chapter

You know, I've debated whether I want to write about this and initially I wasn't going to. But now I feel like it's starting to eat at my thoughts and if I can write down what's going on it will help me to get it out and breath a little easier. And by chance it may end up helping me later on down the line with a problem that I don't yet know exists.

It's about Carter. I love him, as much as any mother loves her son. That part goes without saying.

We've been struggling for three years with different issues and noticing quirky things here and there. Tom and I finally decided to call our local children's hospital to have him evaluated. It was oddly a hard decision for me. I think as a parent you only want to ever see the good in your children. The thought of something being "wrong" no matter how major or minor throws me off a bit. Even now I still find myself in denial and telling myself there's nothing wrong and then that quirky particular-ness comes out and reassures me I'm doing the right thing. Answers are better than questions, right?

I called around the end of November and was put on the waiting list. Last week we finally got the call wanting to know if we could come in that Friday for the initial behavioral consultation. Tom and I agreed to the 45 minute long consult and started to map out the days events. Like most things in life they rarely go according to our plans. It snowed that morning and DelDot didn't bother to salt the roads and I think we were a total of 25 minutes late for the appointment that we waited six weeks to have scheduled. They were very understanding and let us have our appointment, albeit shortened, it was kind of them just the same. In that short amount of time the clinician picked up on two concerns. One was speech which was the one I expected the other of all things was possible OCD.

It was like a light bulb went off. I never, not once, thought of him to have OCD. It makes perfect sense the way he needs to have things just so and why no matter the amount of reprimand the same events happen.

A few main triggers Tom and I have picked up on:

• cutting his food...don't do this ever
• sticky/dirty hands
• the potty is "gross"

There are more things than that but those are the big ones that we see the biggest breakdown about. It's like watching a child have a tantrum but to the tenth power. I don't know that you can truly appreciate what I'm talking about without seeing it. Fortunately, I guess I'll use that word, the clinician had the chance to see one of the "potty is gross" meltdowns complete with Carter shoving and hitting my legs while screaming at me and crying. It was super fun and made me want to cry right there in the doctor's office. It hurts my heart that he may have to deal with having "issues" and he's only three.

Once that appointment concluded they wanted to go ahead and set up an appointment for a psychological evaluation with them. I was also given the information to call the school district to start the process for the speech and developmental studies. 

I called the district and they ordered the speech and developmental studies and we are now on a two week waiting list to have that done. The lady was very kind and gave me a lot of useful information over the phone about how the process works. Today the children's hospital called to make his psychological evaluation appointment. It's not until March and we will be there for 3-4 hours when the day finally comes. I got the call at work and even though I knew it was coming it still had a little sting. Hearing the woman tell me she was calling to "set up Carter's psychological evaluation" just seemed like the words didn't belong together.

So here we sit in the research phase, I'm trying to take it all in stride but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little scary. Next stop will be a behavioral study on the 22nd of this month, time will tell.