20 Months old! Update!

20 Months old! Update!
(April 15, 2011)

A lot has happened with Andrew since his last update, he is 29 pounds, 34.25 inches tall and is a "bull in a china shop" as we like to call him. He is constantly on the go and has advanced with his physical abilities beyond what I would have expected from a 20 month old. He has started jumping, and can do so with BOTH feet off the ground! His vertical jump is only about an inch, but it is a full jump and he is pretty sturdy on his feet when doing so. He can also walk on his tip toes, and has decided to do so sometimes in the middle of the grocery store to show off this new found "trick". He has also become very good at climbing the ladder on the playset and can pretty much go up and down by himself if he wants to play on the slide.

Since we have had some warm days he just LOVES playing in the water table (what kid doesn't) and is a superstar and seeing how many sets of clothes he can soak through in any given day!

He is becoming a picky eater (surprise surprise) I figured that it would happen eventually, the things that he used to like he is noticing that Jacob doesn't eat so now he doesn't eat them either. But he is still gaining weight, growing, and sleeping through the night so I guess he is getting enough nutrition with what he does still eat.

Jacob is still his best buddy in the world, it is "Monkey See, Monkey DO!" with him and Andrew. Andrew will imitate just about anything that Jacob does and Jacob is starting to catch onto this and has already started getting Andrew into precarious situations.......OI! What are the next few years going to be like....I can already here it...."BUT MOOOOOMMMM Jacob made me do it!!!"

I did finally contact Early Intervention for Andrews speech. Past posts have always voiced my concern with Andrews speech (or lack there of) and at 20 months old he only has two consistant words, OW (for a boo boo), and NUM (for YUM or food). Other words that he has said in the past have disappeared (like Uh Oh, and barking for a dog). Sometimes he will still say "HA" for HOT but that is about it. He also doesn't babble and just points and grunts for everything. So there are no "bbbbb, mmmmm, ppppp, ggggg" sounds coming out of his mouth. This of course means that he still hasn't called me "mama" or Paul "dada" which is really the hardest part of having a child with a speech delay.

Andrew was evaluated and his expressive language (what he says) was at or below a 9 month old level....WOW pretty sad, but not shocking. Heck if I didn't see that something was wrong then I wouldn't have called them. But as I thought EVERYTHING else about Andrew was at or WAAAYYYY above his age range. His Gross Motor (running, walking, jumping) was >age level, Fine Motor (holding a crayon, picking up small objects) was at age level, Self-Help (feeding himself) was at age level, Cognition & play skills was at age level, Communication Skills/Receptive Language (words he understands, face expressions, pointing/gestures) was above age level at 24-30 months, Joint attention (does he follow directions, and social exchange) was at age level, and finally the Expressive language was well below age level at 9 months.

So what was recommended was to start with speech therapy once a week for 6 months to get him to a point where he is saying some consonants in his babbling (M, B, P, G, etc...) and of course to get him talking. At this point we are looking for anything that isn't a grunt and will be getting him to ask for things. Even if he calls Jacob Doe-Doe but does it consistently we will count that for him as he has no "words" or "verbal expressions" that he uses consistently. Obviously the end goal would be for him to use the "official" words for what he wants but speech and communication starts slowly and since he is a 9 month old with speech we need to work through the same levels of speech with him that you would expect a typical developing baby to go through. Most babies call things "baba" for bottle or "wawa" for water. So Andrew will go through the same levels of speech in order to get to the end result of clear speech.

I am excited, and think this is going to be great! I am extremely optimistic and have no fear what so ever about his lack of speech. I know that everything else is developing normally so this is a fix that we can focus on and since his evaluation he has started saying "weeee" on the swing/slide which is a new sound for him. I can't wait until I can post that he is finally calling me MAMA!!! What a great day that will be!