Ds and I are going tomorrow for his eval for speech and OT therapy. I'm feeling a little down right now for two reasons. The first is that the therapy center that was our first choice for speech is verryyy lonnngggg wait listed. I've heard nothing but amazing things about that place so I'm just really bummed about it. That's not to say where we're going isn't going to be great, but you know, wasn't what I planned *sigh*. The second reason is I did volunteer day at DS Mother's Day out yesterday. It was one of those break your heart moment becuase you can see just how different/behind your child is. I'm just asking for some uplifting "my child wasn't doing this, but is now a doctor" stories lol. Just one of those days 
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I wish he was a doctor!! lol DS has been receiving therapy since he was 2 and half and he's now three and half. Here's what I've learned, I can't compare my son's milestones and achievements to that of other children. Reason being, he's not those other kids. So where his cousin who is only 5 months older than him, is speaking in full sentences always, dressing herself without help, and overall pretty independent...it doesn't compare to my son because sure he may not be doing all those things independently or as often as we would like...BUT he freaking amazing!! At 2 and a half he had like maybe 10 words in his vocabulary and now, he has endless words!!! I know it can be discouraging at times to see your baby behind BUT your baby (and YOU) are working your bootys off to reach the proper milestones that are suitable for him at this time.
You are doing great mama! Don't you ever forget that! And your little man is a rockstar!
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I could have totally written what @bubblegum just wrote. DS has been in therapy since 20 months and I was the same. Constant worry, lots of tears and being upset (me, not him!) I barely wanted to be around friends with other kids because they were leaps and bounds ahead and speaking 2 languages when my kid couldn't even say mama. I'm not sure when or how but one day I just thought: accept it. I can't make him talk. All I can do is try my hardest to help him and be his advocate. My wife even said 'at the very worst, he can at least use sign language' and that weirdly made me feel better.
Now at almost 3, he finally had that language explosion I so desperately wanted to happen. He does have a motor speech disorder so our work isn't over yet, but he gains new words and sounds every day. I can ask him questions and he answers with more than one word, and I can understand him! He has such an amazing personality and I am so so proud of him. His daycare teacher was in tears a month or two ago because he finally could say her name and sang a song along with his class. He knows the kids names and plays games with them. His confidence is building every day. I am forever thankful for our SLP in identifying the disorder and tailoring his treatment. I NEVER thought he would say more than one word sentences and now he says 3-4 easily and other people actually understand him. He said trick or treat last night!
It will be ok. Your child is amazing in their own way and that's what makes us all amazing! Focus on the small victories and being his advocate. It gets easier as you get a plan and start seeing that progress. You're doing a great job!
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@arosebyany: Aww, I'm sorry mama! You are doing the right thing by getting him a little help! Obviously every child is different, and I think you already know this, but DS was the last to "talk" of all of his friends. The last by about 5 months - which seemed like an eternity at the time! Now, at 23 months, all of the toddlers in his classroom are completely on par and there is no discernible difference between him and the very first to talk (at 12 months!). So it definitely is possible for kids to "catch up" to their peers. Good luck with your DS!
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We are newly navigating the OT world for our son (he has different issues than your son - sensory processing disorder). But I can give a positive story from our EI and OT experience - last year at Halloween DS wouldn't put a costume on - screaming like I was hurting him, etc. I left his school in tears and was mortified. With EI for a year and now OT for a month, yesterday he happily trotted in while wearing his costume! So things do improve.
It is so hard to stay positive in the moment, I've had a lot of "why can't my kid just be like X" moments as we navigate this new diagnosis and I've had a lot of tears about it. So many hugs to you, it's so hard to stay positive. But it will get better, your kid is awesome and you are a great mama for getting him help! xoxo.
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@bubblegum:
you are so inspiring! I'm almost hopping your going to school to become a motivational speaker seriously! Thank you so much mama!
@muffinsmuffins: I love the idea of signing being the worst, in which case I know he's communicating! I know I just have to keep telling myself not to compare him, but it's soooo hard.
@wrkbrk: thank you for your sweet words twin mama! and did I mention your little man was so adorable in his panda costume!!
@psw27: That improvement sound amazing! I'm sure that was a super proud mama moment!!I guess some of you know and some don't that we're facing a future diagnosis of autism. We have an appt. with the pediatric neurologist on Monday. We're fortunate that DS doesn't seem to have any behavioral issues or many sensory issues. Truly he's more social than what you would expect to see. He does however have the classic hand flapping and repetitive gestures like spinning and repeatedly opening and closing doors. Seriously this kids has never met a door he didn't love
. he's also very limited in his language. He had no expressive and not much receptive, so even though I'm worried he's not speaking, I'm more worried about the fact that he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I know a lot of mothters long for the day thier child says mama, but I long for the day I can tell DS that it's bath time just to watch the excitement light his face and for that precious arm flapping to commence.
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@arosebyany: I’m sorry you are struggling. I know this is so hard. Hang in there!
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I will share a little of my boy’s story in hopes that it will encourage you...
T was born in April 2014 so he’s now 3.5. He was in EI from July 2014 until his 3rd birthday. As an infant it was for feeding issues and then he continued with the SLP to work on his speech. He was severely delayed in speech. He only had one word (mama) from around 12 months until 22 months. Very slowly he started to add more words. By 2.5 he was just starting to use three word phrases consistently and singing along with favorite songs. Then this summer he just took off completely. He talks absolutely non stop. Today he asked me “Am I disturbing you?” when he interrupted my lunch to ask me for help with something. If you had asked me when he was a young toddler, I never could have imagined having big conversations or hearing him use big words! We are waiting to get his IEP so he can receive speech therapy from the local school and on a wait list at a local university clinic (I’m so impatient to get him back into speech!). He needs to work on intelligibility at this point, but I understand almost everything he says.
Keep reading, singing, attempting signs if you’re into that, etc and don’t get discouraged. We tried for many months to get our boy to sign and finally I gave up because we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. One day it finally clicked! Same with music. Now he literally will sing to himself while he plays.
I know it is so heartbreaking to watch other kids do things that your son can’t. Allow yourself to feel a little sad, but then try to focus on his strengths and put those other kids out of your mind. Your boy will learn at his own pace. And when he does start talking more or meeting other goals you will be so proud and excited because you know he had to work extra hard to get there.
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@arosebyany: Aww you're the sweetest! Thanks love! Somewhat close! lol I'm going to be an Early Education/Special Education teacher!
Please update us on the appt Monday. Honestly wall, e-mail, whatever works! You have our full support throughout this time!
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Hang in there! I swear that every time I begin to really stress about a particular part of DS's therapy he starts to improve. My situation is a little different since he had a stroke earlier this year but it is amazing how much he has improved already. It is hard to be at a party and watch all the other kids able to climb and jump while you have to hover behind your 2 year old to help steady him. I just try to be thankful for each little achievement. Just know that you are note alone!!
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@arosebyany: if it's a mild case of autism, you're way ahead of the game. Early therapy means a much better outcome in helping a child cope.
One of my two was so far behind the curve when he was young. I'm so thankful he's my oldest. If I already had another child to compare him to, I would have lost my mind before he turned two. First it was the muscle tone - when I look at old videos and see how weak and floppy he was compared to his sister, my heart skips a beat. Then it was the lack of talking - again, light years behind where DD is at the same age. Therapy did wonders for him. He's probably always going to be weaker than other boys, but not to the point where it's obvious if you don't know to look for it. And the talking... that was probably the muscles too, but once he worked out how to make the basic sounds he took off.
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TLDR version: Its SO important to get him this intervention before the age of 3. Aggressive and early intervention at this age will be key as so much development happens in this year. Our speech people and DS1's teachers told us most kids who are intervened with at this age can level out by the age of 3, and that was certainly the case for us. Also, getting into EI now as opposed to after 3 is better since you'd be stuck dealing with the school district at that point.
Its much easier and effective to deal with the EI services before that point.My son had a speech delay. He was found to have a severe hearing impairment at 20 months because of 6 months of back to back ear infections. Basically, at the point he should have been developing language, he couldn't hear.
He had tube surgery at 22 months and we had him assessed for EI at 24 months. He just missed the cut off to qualify for services, but was definitely delayed per the speech pathologist.Using the suggestions by the speech therapist who assessed him, we sorta made up our own plan to get him on track. The biggest thing we did was we put him in full-time 5 day a week preschool that had a 2 year old program. From 9-12pm, he was working with peers in the 2-3 year old range on age appropriate skills and speech. We informed his teachers of his delay so they were great about working to engage him. We kept him in all day care because the 2-5pm afternoon daycare portion was mixed ages, so he would be exposed to more advanced speech from the older kids (school goes to pre-K), and he would essentially be forced to fend for himself on the playground.
We also worked really hard at home to reinforce speech. We did Priddy and Usborne word books every day as much as he wanted. As his vocabulary grew, he was really excited to "read" the books to us and tell us what everything was. We went out of our way to point out objects in real life or on TV that we knew he knew the word for. We over-enunciated and exaggerated all our words around him so that he could clearly hear proper pronunciation and also it just made words sound more fun to him.
I would say the ball really got rolling around 26 months, and every week literally has shown new improvement. They actually moved him to the 2-3 combo class midway through the school year because they said he was such an eager learner they thought being with slightly older kids would be more stimulating for him. He was still on the lower end of normal for speech, but because he wanted so badly to learn new material, he really tried hard to communicate his needs to his teachers, which stretched his language. And being around 3 year olds really got him to work harder at talking and fending for himself with toys and stuff too.
He is 38 months old now and his speech has just exploded. He is using sentences and trying to tell us stories and while he's still not the most verbally advanced in his crew, he is firmly "normal" now and we are thrilled. (The sass and talk back that comes with it I'm not to crazy about, but whatever).
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@arosebyany: hey mama just wanted to give you some love. My son was recently diagnosed with high functioning asd. It’s so overwhelming. We just started a whirlwind of EI and I have already seen progress. Someone recently told me to remember your child will be different tomorrow, in a month, in a year, regardless of their own challenges and strengths ... even typical kids will always be changing and growing. It’s is awesome how much dedication you have for him. Keep up the good work. I hope I can share more progress with you soon and vice versa...
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Thank you all so much, you ladies never fail to make me feel better, when I'm having one of my pity party days.
@Bluemasonjar: your son sounds amazing
@Mama Bird: I do believe DS will be classified as high functioning becuase he doesn't seem to have any cognitive delays, just the speech and social stuff. It really is so hard when your a FTM, in the beginning I was constantly questioning myself about what I was seeing.
@gingerbebe: I hear all the time what a difference being between 2 and 3 can make, therapy wise. When I first told DH His denial tactic was to keep repeating "he's not even two" I understand though, that DH hasn't been around any other kids besides DS, otherwise it would be obvious to him. I'm hopping that they'll have A LOT of suggestions for me today, becuase I really don't know where to start.
@magnolia: I hope we have sooooooo many stories to tell 
if you don't mind me asking, could you tell me who did the eval and how long it took? We were referred to a neurologist, but when I google it's almost like they're the least qualified and that I would have a preliminary diagnosis after an hour, which seemed awfully quick to me.So when I'm having a down day or even a really good day I like to get on themighty.com and read the autism category stories. Yesterday there was a new one entitled "to the mama waiting on an autism diagnosis" and it was exacly what I needed to hear at the exact right time.
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I feel you so much on this. I've written in other EI threads before. My second son (almost 2.5 years old) is in speech therapy and developmental therapy. He's reaching his year assessment on it. He's had services since January 2017. Once we started the ball rolling, it's been fantastic. He saw my ENT almost immediately for a hearing test and then later tubes. One tube fell out recently at 5 months in. Since doing the tubes and adenoids surgery, his language has come along. In the past month, he's starting to use expressive language beyond signs. I just finished up an ASL class last night to learn as many signs as I could to help him. At almost 2.5 years old, we finally have 3 expressive words and a ton of signs. It's been a long journey, but so worth it. I wished that we would have started sooner.
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@cascademom: that sounds so awesome! Im starting to get excited for our eval today, just so we can move forward. can I ask was his receptive language behind?
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@arosebyany: His receptive language wasn't behind. He understands everything, just can't express it. The speech therapist thinks that because his ears were so filled with fluid on top of so much snot from adenoids not working the way they should that he couldn't hear his own voice and understand the sounds. Since doing speech therapy, his receptive has skyrocketed. He knows everything and what he wants. He just can't say it. The tubes and adenoid removal made it so he can hear his voice. Now, it's just a matter of figuring out the throat movement for speech and how it works to talk. You can see him thinking and knowing he wants to talk, but doesn't know how to. When he figured out screaming, it was a fun day. So much screaming, but okay with us because he can hear it and control it unlike just baby cries when he was tiny.
We embrace any and every milestone we get. When he tests out and up to speed, I'll throw a party for him and get a facial for myself for all of the hard work it's been because it's a huge commitment of time, sacrifice, and energy to help get a little one up to speed.
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@arosebyany: well he has a “provisional” level one diagnosis from a psychologist that we met through early intervention. Whoever you met with should use a standardized interview/autism rating form such as the gars, Ados or cars. The psychologist we met with emphasized that it is provisional and that he should be evaluated again in 6-12 months. That will have to be done by a neuropsychologist and/or developmental pediatrician. I am on some local listserves of other asd parents and getting recommendations that way once we proceed with the next evaluations. It’s f—ing stressful! Getting an. Initial diagnosis even if it’s only from someone meeting your child for an hour is important because then he can begin to qualify for services. Further evaluation can/should be done as he gets older
Keep us updated on how today went! Sending you all the hugs
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Good morning everyone! As you can see I'm feeling much more optimistic today. Our speech Eval went really well yesterday. The center that wasn't my first choice, looks to be an amazing place! They had several children therapy areas, and the poeple were amazing! Ds and I actually had several of the therapist come up to him to talk to him and tell him how cute he is lol. We actually had our eval with the director of speech services and I loved her! She asked the questions(while filling out her sheet) and played with DS, but she never told me where he is agewise, and I'm not even upset about it. We're going to start speech twice a week, starting next wednesday. OT is wait listed for 3 weeks, but after that it will be once or twice a week. This will all be out of pocket so that will factor how many times we go twice to OT. Regardless I'm ridiculously optimistic about the whole situation right now.
@cascademom: this gives me so much hope
@magnolia: ok so I feel a little better. I did ask what diagnostic tool they use and she told me the CARS-2, it's just really hard to look that one up. What threw me off is that it's now standard for them to do a ekg. I actually had a convo about it with the therapist yesterday. She said that I was the 4th mama in the past two months to say that exact thing. It's apparently not even just the location I'm going, but now Texas children's also does that as a standard part of their autism diagnosis to rule out seizures being the cause. Regardless Monday can not be over fast enough. Thank you for the info -
@arosebyany: I actually think the ekg is a great idea. Professionally I have seen a few kiddos with asd who also have silent seizures. Hugs mama
. he's also very limited in his language. He had no expressive and not much receptive, so even though I'm worried he's not speaking, I'm more worried about the fact that he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I know a lot of mothters long for the day thier child says mama, but I long for the day I can tell DS that it's bath time just to watch the excitement light his face and for that precious arm flapping to commence.
if you don't mind me asking, could you tell me who did the eval and how long it took? We were referred to a neurologist, but when I google it's almost like they're the least qualified and that I would have a preliminary diagnosis after an hour, which seemed awfully quick to me.Reply
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