How the Quarantine Helped P's Speech Development

 In January 2020, I finally made the phone call I knew had been coming. 

Preston was doing very little talking. At his 18 month appointment, his pediatrician wasn't terribly concerned yet, but did warn me he had some things against him: he's a sibling meaning that his older brothers would likely do a lot of the talking for him, he's a boy, and he wasn't in daycare. Because I was home with him, I knew what he wanted most of the time so he didn't NEED to work on his verbal skills.

Here we were, a few months later, with little to no progress in his speech development since that appointment. I felt like it was time to get EarlyOn involved and get him some help and us some tools. 

Speech Development

Preston had a very small handful of words- a mama and dada here or there, a couple animal noises and that was basically it. The thing that was interesting about him was he was ZERO percent frustrated. It never bothered him if we didn't know what he was trying to communicate to us. He didn't care if he had to do many steps to get his needs met. 

For example, there was a time when he wanted a drink from the bathroom sink. He walked over to the door and started to point at it with some grunts as he was pulling at his dad's pant leg. Josh opened it for him. Then, he went to go get a cup and walked it back to Josh. Preston grunted and pointed at the sink. Josh took the cup and filled it with water to hand back to him. This took several minutes whereas saying the word 'water' would've taken seconds. Preston never got frustrated, angry, or impatient. He just did all those steps, happily, that resulted in him getting what he wanted. I found that fascinating, his lack of annoyance, but also a bit concerning. If he was okay with doing all those steps, how long would it really be until he actually started talking?! What was going on?

Most of the time, between his three brothers and parents, he was all set. We knew Preston's 'language.' 

I knew part of going to EarlyOn for speech would be to help me not to enable him when I shouldn't or just do things because I knew what he wanted without trying to get him to communicate with me. 

Speech Sessions

In early February, we began to have Miss Cathy come to our house to work with Preston and me on his speech. At that time, he maybe had five or seven words and was 21 months old. We created some goals together and she did assessments on other things like his motor skills and hearing just to make sure everything else was developing appropriately. We got to work. 

The next month or so, carving out that time once a week or every other week was an incredible blessing. It got me some much needed one-on-one time with my last little boy and allowed him to get some strategic instruction to help boost his vocabulary. Progress was slow, but was happening. 

Then, the coronavirus hit. We were all home, there was no school, there was no speech sessions, etc, etc. We went a good 6-8 weeks without a single session and I felt terrible- I know his speech teacher did too. Little did I know, all this quarantining would be an incredible blessing for Preston. 

Big Brothers Make the Best Teachers

As the weeks went by while we were all home together, Preston's vocabulary began to absolutely explode. I'm sure part of it was developmental, but I am absolutely convinced that his brothers were better speech teachers than I and his speech pathologist could ever be. As they were playing so much together and there was exponentially more talking going on in our home, he began to improve so much. 

I noticed him trying to mimic sounds and copy words his brothers were saying. I could see how much he responded, especially, when Carter would ask him to repeat something. Preston was willing to try new words, to practice. He didn't want to do that before. Each of the older boys was so proud when they would teacher Preston a new word or get him to copy something back.

When we finally had a virtual session in May, Cathy couldn't believe his progress- she was absolutely stunned. I wasn't sure what a virtual session would be like for a two-year-old, but he loved 'playing' with her over the computer and we did that every few weeks throughout the summer.

Preston continued to improve growing his vocabulary and then began to put two or three word sentences together- something he had never ever done before. 

Months later, here in October, he just tested OUT of speech!! I truly can't believe it. When we sat down again to assess him, it was incredible the amount of words he now knows. 

Blessings in Disguise

If his dad and brothers hadn't been home so much over all these weeks, I don't know that he'd be in the same place. Preston was given the gift of hours upon hours of extra play time with his favorite people in the world- his brothers. Before, he often watched at the sidelines, taking it in, but not being able to participate with them in their adventures. Now he can play WITH them, communicate WITH them, pretend WITH them. 

His speech is night and day different from January to now.  

We've all been challenged and challenged hard during these last six/seven months. However, when times are difficult, there are often little blessings sprinkled in. Little bright spots. Preston's speech development is one of those.