when it all starts to come together.

As I wrote a couple months ago, NEW BEGINNINGS have been in the works and all I can say is WOW. I knew in my heart a lot of these changes were what we needed to move forward. No regrets.

My son is taking off.

For example:

HIS SPEECH and LANGUAGE

• 2 MONTHS AGO: "Help you mommy!" TODAY: "Mom I need help! I can't reach my chocolate milk! Mommy help me please!
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "Kailyn soccer. Aiden park." TODAY: "Kailyn go play soccer and mommy and Aiden go play at park. I like the park mommy. Oh thank you!" 
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "I want bed mommy." (meaning he doesn't want to go to bed). TODAY: "After bath, time for bed? I don't want go bed, I stay up you and daddy." 
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "What's next?" TODAY: "After school, library and get books, then what's next?" 
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "Aiden Lucky Charms please?" TODAY: "I hungry mommy. I have Lucky Charms no milk."
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "Ow Kailyn!" TODAY: "Kailyn don't hurt my head! That hurts! owww!"
• 2 MONTHS AGO: "Aiden three year old." TODAY: "I four years old next year I five and then six. I not three no more."
• He's using phrases like - "Oh, it's so beautiful!" and "Wow! That's amazing!" and "I am so excited mom!" and "I said to hang on." (really? I must say this.)
• He's picking up on language through incidental learning left and right. He's expanding his answers to questions to include words within the question.
• When I didn't understand that he wanted me to turn the radio OFF in the car (I thought he was saying up) he overstressed the oFF saying it perfectly (he really has a hard time with this letter) and when I asked, "Why?" he answered, "BECAUSE it's too loud!"

I kid you not. His language has SKY.ROCKETED. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but I knew it was in that cute little head of his just waiting to explode!

HIS OT
I really need to write a post about Aiden's OT. She is uber-amazing. When I think about her, I smile. When Aiden sees her, his face lights up. She has a gift. I'm going to dedicate a post all to her, but wanted to give an update here.

• Six months ago, Aiden could barely walk across 2 balance buckets, this week, he made it across all SIX (or seven?)!!!
• He's running without falling (ok, most of the time).
• He's processing multiple tasks in an a lot more seamless manner than he's done before (still a little ways to go, but the boy has made HUGE strides!)

A lot of his progress in OT transfers over to his speech. Again, need to dedicate a post about this. We're still scheduled for neurology in May, as he still has off balance days (or hours). I asked Miss A if she thought we could "graduate" soon, and she thinks we still have a bit to go. That's okay, because we'd miss her in our weekly schedule!

HIS DAY to DAY SCHEDULE

• He is sleeping in his OWN BED and going to sleep in his OWN BED at 7:30 and falls asleep on HIS OWN! This is huge. TWO MONTHS AGO: I would have to lay with him every night as he tossed and turned and didn't fall asleep until well after 9 by which time I was also out.  Then he'd be up throughout the night, 3-4 times or more. I was getting no down time at night and neither of us were getting any sleep.
• He has always been a happy go lucky kid, but I'm telling you, the kid has an extra pep in his step these days (literally, because he's learned to gallop (another HUGE milestone for him) and he does it everywhere we go).
• He is eating better. I know kids go through stages, but it seemed like his appetite came back the same time all these changes happened. 
• Him and I get the whole afternoon together - to be silly, play hide-n-seek or go-fish or legos (or work on those pesky /f/ words), or dance, or go to the park, or even just sit back and watch a movie together. It's amazing having this time back with him. I LOVE our alone time together. Seriously, PRICELESS.

He's coming out of his shell and showing us what he has. It's all coming together. I attribute a lot of this to being around HEARING peers (good language models), an amazing new teacher, his wonderful OT, and a new weekly AV tele-therapy program with the amazing Dr. Todd Houston and his grad students through the University of Akron (more to come on this too) ... 

OH, and he's FOUR ... and everything seems to change at FOUR. {SMILE}.

Listening, Language, and Speech Development: 2 Years Hearing

I haven't posted a speech sample in quite awhile, or really, even given an update on Aiden's language development in quite awhile. I don't have any "official" scores from standardized testing, BUT I do have my "mommy" thoughts, (and a video clip at the end), which I think, are actually more "official" than any test.

As any therapist or teacher starts a meeting with parents, they usually start with the strong points (and if they don't, I'd find a new one) and Aiden has many, but here are a few (or five).

1) Aiden is a genius. Seriously. Ok, maybe not a genius, and I know he's my kid, but the boy is mr.smarty.pants. He has this photographic memory that is utterly scary. He picks up on new concepts very quickly, which puts my mind more at ease because for a word to become part of a CI child's comprehensive vocabulary, they typically need to be exposed to it 100 plus times.

2) Receptively, he is doing phenomenally. He listens better than his hearing brother and sister (mainly because they choose to only have selective hearing).

3) Expressively, he's doing pretty good. His vocabulary list of what he says comprehensively is huge. I don't track it anymore because he's picking up on new words so quickly. He knows nouns, verbs, a good handful of adjectives, prepositions, articles, plurals, etc. and uses pretty much all of them in the proper context. He does a pretty good job enunciating single words or two words together. He's communicating his needs and wants and is definitely vocal. BUT .... (list of "buts" to come after all the non-worries).

4) He does a great job discriminating different environmental sounds and has great auditory comprehension skills all around.

5) his voice quality is good. There are times I worry about him sounding a bit nasally (which could mean he's getting too much high frequency input), but I keep my mind at ease through his AVT and his school teachers/therapists that tell me he has wonderful voice quality. He also has no problem imitating different sound durations (being able to hold a long sound - i.e. baaaaaaaa vs. a multi-syllabic sound ba-ba-ba. Six months ago, this was very hard for him. He could hold a long sound for a short time and only repeat up to two-syllable short sounds - ba-ba, which had a lot to do with his breath control and his low tone) and different tonal ranges (deep vs. high, whisper vs. scream - which screaming has become his newest favorite thing to do).

Now onto the "buts". Don't get me wrong, I believe Aiden is coming along WONDERFULLY. I really do. and how positive is it that he's speaking at all! BUT, in the same breath, I have my worries. This journey definitely comes with struggles and roadblocks, everyone's is different, but nothing we won't conquer.

Here are my mommy observations:

1) Aiden's just not much of a talker (except in church). While he plays, he talks to himself, as he walks around the house, he talks. So I should say, he's not much of a conversationalist (I know, it seems like a lot to ask). He's almost like his mind is constantly racing to stop and just talk. He's not one to ask questions (yet) and doesn't have a lot of conversational speech going on. He is just starting to answer simple "w" and how type questions. He's definitely mastered the "yes/no" question asking phase and has a perfect sounding "yes" and "no" (this step typically has to come before they'll start answering the "w" questions). Right now he does a lot of imitating, almost as if he's gotten too used to all of us modeling everything for him. The good thing about this though is he imitates me when I expand on his one-two word phrases. For example, he'll say, "wow truck!" and I'll say, "I see the truck. It's a big yellow dump truck!" and he'll repeat back, "see yewow dump truck!" He's getting there.

2.) Most of the time he talks in one to two word phrases, but we're starting to hear him put three and four words together more and more and speak more directly with us. The other night he asked me, "Mommy, bears please?" (he wanted to watch the three little bears on my computer) and he asked WITH the proper intonation so I knew it was a question. this was definitely a first (usually he would say, "bears mommy" or just simply, "bears.") my eyes leaked.

3) When he does combine more than two words, his articulation gets weak and jumbled, as if he's mumbling (he does this too with a word that has more than two syllables). We understand him, but a stranger walking down the street would probably only pick up on the first word or two. Our immediate family (gmas, aunts, uncles etc) is starting to understand him more though and have shared how he's come such a long way in the past six months. He sings songs, and I hear that tune in his voice (thank you God!), but it's hard to understand what it is he's singing. His speech can sometimes sound "lazy", if that makes sense.

4) He has trouble with his bilabials (/p/, /b/, /m/, /w/ (which is caused by low tone in his cheeks and lips) among a few other early sounds he should already have (like /t/ and /d/). (NOTE: I'm not including sounds that even a typical hearing three year old wouldn't quite have yet, like /f/ or /k/ etc. What's funny though is Aiden says a perfect /s/ and /sh/ and most of the other s blends.) There are times he says these perfectly - sometimes in isolation as when we do CV (consonant-vowel) syllable practice, and sometimes just in the beginning, middle, and/or end, depending on the word. For example, he says a PERFECT, clear as day, melt your heart, "mommy", but milk, is still "Nilk". He also says a PERFECT "baby", yet when he calls our dog Bella, it's "Dewa". The /p/, is usually perfect at the end of words (pop is "op", stop is "stop") but is completely absent in the beginning and middle of words (no matter how hard I try, I cannot get the boy to say apple, it's "ah-le".) We know he can repeat these sounds (so it's most likely not a mapping issue), but when paired with different sounds, it's either easy or difficult (like, "boo" and "moo" are very hard for him to say - yet he repeats a perfect "oo" or "ba" or "ma" in isolation). This not only has to do with poor lip closure, but also breath control and having to put multiple steps together (in the brain and orally) to produce these (see #5). Even in all this, he says "chocolate" pretty close to perfect. Go figure.

5) He has motor planning issues. THIS site provides brief examples of the different speech motor planning disorders. Aiden definitely fits into the "Sensory Processing and Motor Planning" and "Movement Execution" areas. I believe once we get our arms around this and his oral motor (he uses his teeth to talk a lot), he'll start taking off, which will then lead to more conversational type speech.

So yes, Aiden is definitely hearing and UNDERSTANDING us. He is also speaking, with some articulation set backs (oral motor) and some trouble putting what he knows together in order to voice his thoughts and create simple conversation (motor planning). He gets it though, and he'll get there.

Yes, I am SO PROUD of him and how far he's come.

Yes, I'm still worried, I'm sure to an extent I always will be, but I will not lower my expectations for him.

and yes, I know that one day Aiden will get there, and this is HIS journey, these are HIS steps. He gets it (he really is mr.smarty.pants) and he's WELL on his way, at HIS own pace.

Here's the latest speech sample I have.

Note: I had a lot of trouble with Overstream, so I included the video uncaptioned and captioned. I hope one or the other work. and don't forget to turn off the music!

This video was taken about a month ago, right after his third birthday (the day we were going to celebrate it though), and about two weeks after his second hearing birthday.

(captioned)