An eventful day was had today. S met the SLP (Speech Language Pathologist) for the first time. When we arrived for our appointment, we were in an unfamiliar parking lot... I didn't think he was going to get out of the van at first but we then saw another child getting out of a nearby vehicle so this enticed him a bit. We proceeded to the building with a little hesitation. Once inside, S was obviously nervous... he really didn't know what to think of this new place. He spotted a large stuffed tiger and wanted to play with it but it was in another room so I said, maybe once the lady comes to talk to us, we can ask her if we can go see it. He didn't like this answer and wanted to leave. Thankfully, a few moments later, we were escorted to the room where we were to have our appointment. I mentioned to the SLP that S thought the Tiger looked like fun and she brought it to the room with us! This wasn't what he wanted initially but warmed up to the idea after a few minutes.
Props go out to the SLPs and all that they do to make kids feel warm and welcome. In a matter of minutes, S was laughing and playing... you would think he'd known this woman his whole life! He wouldn't say anything to her at first but soon was playing along, not realizing that the games were meant to encourage his vocabulary. He didn't say any words but did repeat the alphabet sounds when prompted. They played a game where he got these little wind-up bumblebees for repeating what the SLP was saying... he was enjoying this and ended up with about 10 little bumblebees very quickly... they then moved on to green caterpillars. He lined them up on the Tigers back trying to see how many he could get on before they fell. It was pretty funny... he was enjoying it. The SLP tried to get S to say "open" and "more" several times throughout the appointment... he said "o" and "p" but that was it. He would not say "more" but did say the "m" sound.
I promised S that after the appointment we would go to the MacDonald Play Place to play on the big slide and have lunch. He had a lot of fun when he was able to play inside by himself but when other children came in and wanted to play, he didn't like this... he quickly decided that he wanted to leave. I tried to encourage him to stay in and play but he would not. Had his older brother been there, or another friend that he knew, I think he would have been fine but he just didn't want to play with the kids that he didn't know. When we were getting ready to leave, we went to the washroom to get cleaned up for the ride home. I asked him if he needed to use the washroom because we had a long drive back home and at first he said no. I asked again, knowing that he was tired and would possibly fall asleep and was hoping to avoid a "potty" accident. He looked down at the floor and said, "poop!" OMG - I have never been so happy to hear the word "poop" in my entire life! After all that we went through with the SLP and him not saying anything to her, we go to visit Ronald MacDonald and he comes out with POOP! At this point, beggars can't be choosers! I'm happy with that word! It seemed almost too easy though. After weeks of not being verbal, once in a while, he'll say a new word. We've been trying to play the "one new word a day game" but most of the time, it doesn't happen. Poop???
In our initial consultation appointment last week with the SLP she had mentioned a couple of terms to us: (1) Elective Mutism, and (2) Verbal Apraxia. I have googled both, and Verbal Apraxia does not seem to fit the mould... but I'm no professional. We'll just have to wait until the assessments/tests are completed to see if either fit this situation. What a whirl-wind.
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