Speech Therapy Update....

So here we are .. up to date..

Today we had our second speech therapy session with Julie.. our new/old SLP. She saw Michael for almost a year between his last year of preschool and his first year of elementary school.

She had so many wonderful things to say.. how much more mature he is.. how he's able to go through an entire therapy session without me (which is huge.. LOTs o Tears in previous years).. how well he's able to navigate through his computer. (I'll write a separate note about that another day.)

This is why I decided I needed to start this blog..
You see.. our family lives in the moment.. sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's full of laughter.. just like everyone else! But it's so hard to see how far we've come- how far Michael has come.

It was so refreshing to hear what she said. It was so comforting... It almost made the fact that she said Michael will never talk almost not break my heart.

The neurologist told us that the longer he goes without speaking, the odds are against us..
Our old therapist (Andrea) worked twice a week on trying to get vowel sounds out of him.. some days were good, most days were hard, but never consistent.

So here I sit... with the spoken truth that my son will never form a sentence, or possibly a word. She thinks that because he gets so excited all the time, that maybe we'll hear a "YEAH" when he's happy- but we've decided that we won't try to force sounds from him. Instead we will work to have him independently use his computer to effectively communicate to peers, teachers, family.

Of course we will continue to do everything in our power to help our son... but after 6 years of speech therapy, we are going to change directions.

We love you all.. thanks for reading.. and listening to me ramble- today was a tough day... but it had great news...
We spend so much time thinking about what Michael doesn't have access to, or what he's lacking physically, mentally.. we forget about all he's accomplished, the little things, like being able to be independent, to listen for 30 minutes, and learn.

with all my love-
mom