My Girl

My girl.  My sweet little Peach.  She is coming up on 21 months old and she has two words.  Mama and Uh-oh.  She doesn't use Mama with meaning very often, but she does use Uh-oh correctly and she uses it daily.  Honestly, the fact that she isn't talking doesn't bother me too much.  She is my #3 and I have relaxed about a lot of things.  Although, it would be nice if she could communicate with me.  I want to know what she is thinking.  I want her to ask questions.  It has been frustrating watching babies that were born within a week of her speaking in three word sentences.  I feel like her potential is locked up in her brain and I have to find the key to unlock it.

We decided to have her evaluated by Arizona Early Intervention (AZEIP).  AZEIP is a state program provided to little ones under the age of three.  They sent out a speech therapist as well as a developmental therapist to have her evaluated.  As I guessed, she tested on par developmentally and is just like your average 21 month old.  However, she does have a 50% delay in expressive speech.  That really was no surprise.  She has no problem with her receptive speech.  She understands everything we say and she follows all directions.  She knows MANY words, but does not speak them.  

So, while we were waiting to see if she would qualify for services, the speech therapist gave us some things we could do with her in the meantime.  We are mimicking all of the sounds she makes.  She is drinking from only straw cups (apparently sippy cups are evil when it comes to language development - who knew!).  We are working on her core strength by encouraging her to sit with her legs straight out with no support.  When she is willing to copy me, I give her new sounds to practice.  

Since we started doing these few things, I have seen a great improvement in her willingness to copy my sounds as well as her willingness to attach those sounds to meaning.  As we suspected, she qualifies for services.  She starts therapy on Monday and I am so excited about the possibilities!  I can't wait to hear what she has to say.  I plan on documenting her progress because I think it will be awesome to watch her progress through her therapy.