Speech

I hand Joshua his cup and say, "Joshua, say thank you."  And immediately Joshua says, "Gah".

Was he being rude?  Disrespectful?  No, Joshua was speaking what we've come to call, Joshua-ese.  Probably his first "word" was gah.  And it has always been an immediate response.  To him, thank you is pronounced gah.

We knew he was a bit delayed in speech.  When, at 2 years old, he wasn't saying mommy or daddy with any regularity, that was a clue.  He has said it so I know he is capable of saying the sounds, but its almost as if he chooses not to say it.  As if, in his little brain he is saying, "you want me to say it???  Haha f%#k you, I'm not gonna and you can't make me."

We had him evaluated through the state early intervention program, and can you believe it, he qualified.  Hmmm, now comes the big question do we go ahead with the therapy.  Well, here's the kicker, its a sliding scale based on income, plus, they decided he needed a little cognitive therapy too.  During the evaluation, he didn't always listen.  I told them that he is the type of kid who, if he doesn't want to stack blocks, you can't make him.  If he doesn't want to show you inside the circle versus outside of the circle, he's not gonna.  Well, he showed them, and they decided he was a little challenged. 

Well, because of his ... challenges they want to charge an arm and a leg for all of the therapies.   So there were a few factors to consider at the time that some people just didn't agree with us.  First of all, we were still paying for the last few months of preschool for #2.  Our basement flooded and we were in the midst of fighting our town for reimbursement.  (more on that in another post).  There were other financial obligations but not to mention, he wasn't going to go to Kindergarten saying Gah instead of Thank you.  We strongly believed that his speech would improve over time just on its own.  Not to mention, have I mentioned he's strong willed.  I could imagine paying for speech therapy and he wouldn't talk.  Yeah, he's that kind of kid.  (I'm not sure where he got that stubborn-ness from.  Certainly not me...)

So, we elected to receive services and over the summer we all made a concerted effort to make him talk.  Make him tell us what he wanted.  Sometimes it pushed him and us over the edge, but here we are the end of September and he asked me "where's daddy?"  When I told him at work, he grabbed his shoes and ran to the door.  (I guess daddy is more fun than mommy)  Last night, he said "watch Boov"  He wanted to watch the movie Home, (the aliens are the Boov).  He can say Kelly and Amelia.  Is it the clearest words?  No, but give him time and I believe he'll be reciting the Gettysburg Address, (but only if he wants too).