Exciting things are happening in Ben's world. He started school based speech therapy a little over a month ago. The progress he has made in that month is astounding. I have become gun shy of using the term "language explosion" as I have seen regression/stalled progress following big gains, but it seems to fit.
Ben is speaking in sentences finally! In addition to that, he asks questions!!!!!! Something I hear everyday while we drive, usually on the way home from wherever we were. "Where going, Mommy?" "Ben, we are going back home." "Cause, why, Mommy?" Oh, and mama is a word seldom heard, and the way he says Mommy is so cute. In situations where he is comfortable, he'll talk a bit, but he still refuses to talk in many social situations. His fluency is slow; he sounds like someone learning a foreign language. He talks slowly, halts alot, and makes many grammatical errors. But he is finally trying!
His articulation is improving, and he is so cooperative about practicing his speech homework. He has been exclusively working on s-blends. His first instinct is to drop the s, and his SLP has several cues for him to use it. He cannot manage sp or sl, even with the cues, but he tries. We work on word pairs, and initially he couldn't hear the difference between words off by only one letter, but now he totally gets it.
He is toe walking so much less! His physical therapist said that the progress he makes from week to week is what she usually sees over a month or several months. I am feeling confident that after we move this summer, we will be done with PT for good.
He had no problems adjusting to the little class he attends. He waves bye-bye to me, and seems to have fun. He has made his first ever friend with a little girl from the social skills class we have been in since September. The little girl is shy and reserved and the two of them seem to understand each other. Ben still isn't interested in socializing with most children. Liam has always wanted to be part of the group but misses alot of social cues and is awkward in his interactions. Ben, by contrast, seems to look at most kids with a sense of disgust and disinterest. He likes people he interacts with reguarly, but much prefers adults to kids his age.
He has finally gotten over his dislike of Dave and happily goes to him. It is more than that....when he hears the garage door open, he stops whatever he is doing and runs into the garage to get hugs from Dave. Liam is happy to see Dave but often doesn't notice him until he has been home for awhile as he is too engrossed in what he is doing.
Ben seems to be making cognitive leaps. He gets days of the week now and remembers the order things happen in with our crazy schedule. He has finally figured out the pattern of counting and can count higher than 20. Because of this, he spends alot of time counting. Liam was like that for a very long time, and numbers have begun to signal, happy boys for me, so I sometimes don't take notice of the counting.
The only area with no progress is eating. Ben still refuses most foods that need to be chewed, except for a limited number of safe foods. He has recently added cheeseburger as a safe food, so that is something. He will NOT touch food at all and would rather eat nothing that touch food with his hands.
His OT did a re-evaluation on him this week and said that he lacked many simple skills she'd expect in an 18 month old, but then had other skills that you don't expect to see until age 4. We have had this problem with Liam, so it isn't new, but it means we have another child that testing is not completely accurate for, and who refuses to fit in the mold.
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