Sunday, October 5

new stuff

Well thanks to everyone who responded about shutting down the blog. I'm keeping it, for now anyways and wanted to share William's speech evaluation results. We had an hour-long evaluation last Thursday at the Tallahassee Speech Center. It was scheduled for 2:00, so I had to pick William up early from school. He was just waking up from a nap and although I was thankful that he got a rest, I wasn't sure if he would wake up enough to be a happy, agreeable guy. Thankfully by the time we reached the car he was awake and we got to the place right on time. I had picked up and filled out all of the paperwork beforehand, so that saved a step as well. We were called back nearly as soon as we got there and met with our SLP, Cindy.
We went into a room with many familiar "speech aids", things that we had seen many times before. Cindy, I noticed, kind of talked funny from the beginning, I can't really explain it, but I've never seen a SLP do this before. She did and asked many new things and William really warmed up to her quickly. Such was not the case at the last place... Anyway, he was basically his happy self and even ate a popsicle and cookie for her. That might sound weird, but it's very crucial for her to see how his mouth works. He said many of "his words" and she got a very good overall picture of our little guy. He did great the whole hour and this is what we came away with:
1. In basic terms, he has apraxia of speech
2. He will not grow out of this, but he can be facilitated out of it
3. He needs specific help relating to the muscles of his mouth and tongue
4. And of course, our insurance (as with most others) does not cover speech therapy, unless it is a result of a major injury or disease such as cerebral palsy
So we are very thankful to finally have some real answers and now we look forward to getting real help. We have confidence that they can help William get his little mouth moving in the right ways. We also look forward to learning how we can help him at home. They will only see him an hour a week (and that's if we can afford it) so we will need to glean all we can from these sessions! We don't know how long it will take to remedy his speech or how we are going to afford this much-needed therapy. So we ask, if you think of us, to please pray that the Lord will provide additional finances for yet another important need in our lives.

3 comments:

Angela said...

We will pray for William and for you. Thank you for keeping the blog and for filling us in on Williams speech.
Love to all.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing, as we have been concerned. We will pray for you. Remember God never hands us more than we can handle, we just have to remember to put it in his hands and let him have his will. I know this is tough on everyone and my love goes out to you. Just keep the faith and pray.
Love yall,
Aunt Linda

Anonymous said...

I am soooo glad that you have some answers. Please try not to worry too much. I am confident that things will work out. God has his hands in everything we do. Give the kids a squeeze and a tickle for me.

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