Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Say what? Dylan's speech challenge
We are starting the process of helping our 25-month old son Dylan with some speech delays. He is is still on the larger end of the size spectrum for his age (88th percentile) but is lagging behind a bit in speech for a two year old.
My gut (and my doctor) tell us it's nothing serious and most likely A) typical boy speech delay, and B) that he is suffering in comparison to his verbal juggernaut four year old sister Ava, who's never met a word or turn of phrase she didn't like and incorporate into her complex word flow.
And to be fair, he definitely excels in ways that she doesn't: he is very adept physically compared to where she was at the same age: he's been climbing and jumping off of stuff since he was 18-20 months old in a way that she didn't even start doing until she was nearly three.
He also is much more patient and persistant in trying to figure things out. When Ava struggles with something (a container she can't open, a toy that's stuck), it's only for a minute or two before the squeals of frustration begin and tears start welling up, followed by her throwing the thing to the groundn or across the room and/or stomping away or over to us for help.
In contrast, Dylan will sit quietly, making multiple attempts to figure out the thing that's posing a challenge. He may grunt in frustration, but he sticks to his exploration for several minutes until he figures it out or eventually brings it to me, holding it out for help with a questioning, "Ma. Ma. Ma!"
I remember Ava at a 21 months already saying the real names for me, Jason and my folks, in addition to nearly a hundred words. Dylan at 25 months only has about a dozen clearly spoken words: mama/Mommy, dada/Dad, Nana, papa, ball, bus, dog, book, cookie, no (of course), moon, Thomas (the train), sock.
Everything else gets pointed to, or he makes the sound for it rather than saying the word. Point to a duck in a book? Cack-cack (quack-quack). A cow? Moooo! A plane (engine sound).
However, as the doctor and therapist noted, he's not frustrated by his lack of expressive language (as the professionals describe it) because he clearly understands everything that's going on around him and is able to communicate his needs sufficiently through yes/no responses and pointing to get his needs met.
He also interacts with us and others in other ways. Over the summer, Ava asked me for a cheese stick but I was busy and told her she'd have to wait. A couple minutes later, I turned around to find that Dylan had heard this exchange and gone into the fridge, opened the drawer and brought his sister a cheese stick as requested. So clearly his hearing is fine, as are his comprehension skills.
We have probably enabled some of the delay. Words and communication are the lingua franca in our house, so we work hard to make sure we're really listening and hearing each other. The downside to that is that we probably communicate for him and are good at guessing what he wants and asking the right yes/no questions to quickly decipher his wants.
Seeing him opening the fridge, I ask, "What's up Dylan? Want something to drink?"
Dylan: (head shake no)
Me: "Want some yogurt?"
Dylan: (head shake no. Points to drawer.)
Me, rifling through drawer: "Want some grapes? Cheese stick? Turkey?"
Dylan: (shakes head yes at turkey and points to it.)
Me: "Okey doke. I'll put it in a bowl for you. Can you get in your seat?"
His doctor and speech therapist say we should instead play dumb and force him to articulate what he wants. Now, I get that that will help in the long run. But in the short run: how frustrating for both of us! That exchange probably takes 15 seconds. The playing dumb routine? What? 2-3 minutes? Some days, that's 2 minutes I'd rather devote to getting something else done, like dinner.
So this week we finally got in to see a speech therapist for an assessment. And it corroborated everything we've deduced: he can hear, he can understand, he's smart, we need to spend more time practicing and enunciating words with him, and he's just not ready to talk more expansively yet. But he's coming along, and we will help get him there.
Where Ava picked up language much more easily just from talking with us, interactions and books, Dylan will need a little more focused attention, which is underway by everyone in the family, including the grandparents who keep him several times each week.
Despite my earlier concerns, it's nice to have a to-do list for this challenge, a sense of a plan for overcoming it, and noticable results already. As always, I feel blessed to have the family support and medical and financial resources to give him the boost he needs to get over this small hurdle. Imagine lacking any of those things and how much stress that would create? My prayers go out to the many who face that exact reality.
My gut (and my doctor) tell us it's nothing serious and most likely A) typical boy speech delay, and B) that he is suffering in comparison to his verbal juggernaut four year old sister Ava, who's never met a word or turn of phrase she didn't like and incorporate into her complex word flow.
And to be fair, he definitely excels in ways that she doesn't: he is very adept physically compared to where she was at the same age: he's been climbing and jumping off of stuff since he was 18-20 months old in a way that she didn't even start doing until she was nearly three.
He also is much more patient and persistant in trying to figure things out. When Ava struggles with something (a container she can't open, a toy that's stuck), it's only for a minute or two before the squeals of frustration begin and tears start welling up, followed by her throwing the thing to the groundn or across the room and/or stomping away or over to us for help.
In contrast, Dylan will sit quietly, making multiple attempts to figure out the thing that's posing a challenge. He may grunt in frustration, but he sticks to his exploration for several minutes until he figures it out or eventually brings it to me, holding it out for help with a questioning, "Ma. Ma. Ma!"
I remember Ava at a 21 months already saying the real names for me, Jason and my folks, in addition to nearly a hundred words. Dylan at 25 months only has about a dozen clearly spoken words: mama/Mommy, dada/Dad, Nana, papa, ball, bus, dog, book, cookie, no (of course), moon, Thomas (the train), sock.
Everything else gets pointed to, or he makes the sound for it rather than saying the word. Point to a duck in a book? Cack-cack (quack-quack). A cow? Moooo! A plane (engine sound).
However, as the doctor and therapist noted, he's not frustrated by his lack of expressive language (as the professionals describe it) because he clearly understands everything that's going on around him and is able to communicate his needs sufficiently through yes/no responses and pointing to get his needs met.
He also interacts with us and others in other ways. Over the summer, Ava asked me for a cheese stick but I was busy and told her she'd have to wait. A couple minutes later, I turned around to find that Dylan had heard this exchange and gone into the fridge, opened the drawer and brought his sister a cheese stick as requested. So clearly his hearing is fine, as are his comprehension skills.
We have probably enabled some of the delay. Words and communication are the lingua franca in our house, so we work hard to make sure we're really listening and hearing each other. The downside to that is that we probably communicate for him and are good at guessing what he wants and asking the right yes/no questions to quickly decipher his wants.
Seeing him opening the fridge, I ask, "What's up Dylan? Want something to drink?"
Dylan: (head shake no)
Me: "Want some yogurt?"
Dylan: (head shake no. Points to drawer.)
Me, rifling through drawer: "Want some grapes? Cheese stick? Turkey?"
Dylan: (shakes head yes at turkey and points to it.)
Me: "Okey doke. I'll put it in a bowl for you. Can you get in your seat?"
His doctor and speech therapist say we should instead play dumb and force him to articulate what he wants. Now, I get that that will help in the long run. But in the short run: how frustrating for both of us! That exchange probably takes 15 seconds. The playing dumb routine? What? 2-3 minutes? Some days, that's 2 minutes I'd rather devote to getting something else done, like dinner.
So this week we finally got in to see a speech therapist for an assessment. And it corroborated everything we've deduced: he can hear, he can understand, he's smart, we need to spend more time practicing and enunciating words with him, and he's just not ready to talk more expansively yet. But he's coming along, and we will help get him there.
Where Ava picked up language much more easily just from talking with us, interactions and books, Dylan will need a little more focused attention, which is underway by everyone in the family, including the grandparents who keep him several times each week.
Despite my earlier concerns, it's nice to have a to-do list for this challenge, a sense of a plan for overcoming it, and noticable results already. As always, I feel blessed to have the family support and medical and financial resources to give him the boost he needs to get over this small hurdle. Imagine lacking any of those things and how much stress that would create? My prayers go out to the many who face that exact reality.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Snow-my-god!
As usual, Seattle's hills and a wacky weather pattern made for several dicey days last week weather-wise. Forecasters were a little off with their predictions of massive snowfall and widespread chaos, but some areas did get more than a foot of snow and the storm itself went by many names over the past week: snow-pocalypse, snow-maggedon, and my personal favorite Sno-M-G. Ha!
Many folks either stayed home because they couldn't get around, or because they were instructed to stay home from work if they weren't first responders or essential personnel. With buses on snow routes far from my house and a slick, hilly mess in every direction...
I was fortunate to be able to work from home all week as first snow, then ice on top of snow made commuting inadvisable. Having worked in TV news, then government communications, I've had my turn as "essential personnel" working 12-hour shifts out in the elements or in coordination centers for days on end making sure that people have accurate information and resources for dealing with severe weather. When I was in news, the station would get hotel rooms close by so that those who might not otherwise be able to make in wouldn't have that problem. If necessary, I would do that now for myself, but thankfully, that's no longer the nature of my job.
Unlike my first jobs as a teenager where I punched a clock and worked on a trayline at a hospital in the wee hours, I can now do most of my work by phone and online. Upside: working remotely from home when the weather outside is frightful or dangerous. Downside: if it can be done remotely, it can probably done by someone in the developing world for a fifth the cost. Except that I work in local county government customer servcie, which is hard to outsource to the far reaches of the planet. So far.
The best part of working from home? Stepping away from the computer for lunch and some time in the snow with the kids.
The worst part? Trying to explain to the kids that even though I'm here, I'm not available and that I'm working, even though it looks like I'm just talking on my cell phone (conference calls with other managers to coordinate resources, and share input on operational and policy decisions, like whether or not to close offices for the safety of staff and residents who aren't telecommutin) or typing on my laptop (editing materials, responding to emails, approving timesheets, drafting content for staff materials, planning upcoming trainings, etc.).
At one point while Jason worked and Dylan napped, I was on an hour and a half conference call meeting and Ava asked to do my hair. I nodded yes because I knew it would keep her busy and quiet for an extended period. As I talked and typed, she busily brushed, twisted and parted. I finished the call and the day sporting a couple crazy ponytails and multiple hair clips, but she got her "Mommy-Ava time" and I got my work got done. Booyah! Multi-taskin' mama.
Some people in outlying areas are used to dealing with outages, equipping their home with generators and such to maintain at least a semblance of normality in the face of storms and other extreme weather. However, I live in the city so that I don't have to do that. Needless to say, though we had some emergency provisions, they were not enough to make it at all comfortable.
The first five hours weren't so bad. "It's like camping!" Ava said with a smile, though she's never camped in her life.
She and Dylan spent the first few hours chasing each other with flashlights and exclaiming about the first-ever fire in the fireplace. This is the second home we've had with dual fireplaces and this was the first time we'd used them after Jason walked over to a nearby convenience store and procured some firelogs.
Ultimately, we lost power for 13 hours, which was fun for the kids (flashlights! A fire in the fireplace! All the snacks we can eat!) but quickly grew tiresome for us adults, especially once the electronic devices started losing battery life.
Notes for the next time:
 |
| Rockin' Ava's hairdo handiwork after work with a napping Dylan, who was wiped out after running around indoors and out all day with his sister. |
Four days into the storm, just as I was thinking how working remotely wasn't so bad, the power went out: no lights, heat, hot food or eventually, electronic devices. Insert blood curdling scream.
Ultimately, we lost power for 13 hours, which was fun for the kids (flashlights! A fire in the fireplace! All the snacks we can eat!) but quickly grew tiresome for us adults, especially once the electronic devices started losing battery life.
Notes for the next time:
- get real firewood. Firelogs don't really throw off heat, just light.
- get more batteries and some of those windup lights for the kids so that we don't burn through the batteries.
- stock up on more no-heat foods (tuna, beef jerky, fruits, etc.)
- dig out the battery-operated radio/TV tuner. We have one, but it's packed somewhere from the move. It would have been helpful to hear what was going on elsewhere in the area. We were happy in our little bubble though.
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