After Cael turned three, he had his typical well child appointment. The milestone questionnaire had a few questions about the child's speech, which I marked Cael as having no issues with, because if memory serves me correctly the questions just asked if the child talks, and if the child can say at least X number of words. The doctor flew through the exam and didn't really communicate with Cael, at all. Afterwards I started talking to a few friends because I had noticed that Cael's speech wasn't where Troy and Brock were at at his age and I had hoped the doctor would have noticed during his exam. I followed my mother's intuition and scheduled a speech appointment for my little guy. After his testing the pathologist first wanted Cael to have a hearing test (following procedure, which Cael tested fine) and that Cael start speech therapy because his sounds were very confusing and inconsistent. When Troy and Brock were learning to pronounce words, I could easily help them with specific sounds that they struggled pronouncing correctly. I didn't have any idea where to start at with Cael so I was happy that we were able to help him at a young age.
Cael really loved meeting with Ms. Kelly. I was so impressed with how quickly he improved with first his "k" sounds, then his "g" sounds. He had short half hour appointments and his favorite thing was the last 10 minutes when she let him choose toys or a game to play with and they conversed with each other.
There is so much pressure, everywhere, for perfection. I know that Cael's speech was very small compared to trials other people have in their lives, but I am so glad that Cael never felt less than perfect, or teased, from anyone. And I am so glad he was able to do speech therapy and improve his communication skills.
(Cael went to therapy for about six months and we had him reevaluated before we moved. He did very well on his eval and was only recommended to continue with speech therapy because during moves (i.e. big changes) sometimes kids can regress.)
Below: Cael and Ms. Kelly working on sounds. Crew, Cael, and I got to know this little room very well.
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