Autism Awareness Day 24: Speech Therapy

If you want an in-demand career that pays well, consider speech therapy. Getting speech therapy for Connor felt almost impossible-even with early intervention, the precious slots were filled.So, as green autism parents, we were calling our service provider and calling around to various speech therapists-only to have parents tell us that this is not uncommon at all. After several months, we finally got a speech therapist in February. Tom was about to put on his New Yorker, but we got connected before THAT had to happen. (lucky them!)

Sarah has been doing speech for several years and offers a lot of ideas. Of course, much of her sessions are Connor-led, which I honestly don't know how productive that always is. Lately, he has been working on puzzles with her almost exclusively-she could not get him to engage in a book or any other activity. Sometimes I just want the therapists to come in with "Here's what we're doing today..." but apparently some prefer to see what the child is doing and to go along with that. As a parent, I would like to see a bit more structure and activities (because I am a neurotic routine and structure monger when it comes to my kids-to a huge fault) because Connor will do cars and puzzles till the cows come home. Yet, it does work as we see progress each time.

At first, she thought perhaps Connor was apraxic and not autistic, considering some of his social skills and eye contact-but since she had not seen him until a few months after he started therapy-it was harder to see what he was coming from.

Apraxia is a confusing neurological speech disorder between the brain and the mouth-where what is perceived to be said is not what actually comes out of the mouth. Apparently, words are inconsistently pronounced wrong (unlike a speech impediment where the same sounds are consistently wrong). She gave me information on it and I consulted with another friend who is a speech therapist. The list included "doesn't like food", "has trouble eating". I also experimented with Connor, who does repeat sounds and phrases at times and he pronounced all of his letter sounds and words correctly every time. I knew apraxia was not it and my speech therapist friend confirmed my feelings.

Yet, Sarah has observed his car rolling and a few hand flaps. She finds him to be intensely focused on cars and moving objects and hard to steer him out of that. She does work with him to ask for "more" and "want more" is this week's work. He is a little stumped on that one, but he is signing "want", not saying it. (hooray for sign language!) We also made a photo book at her suggestion with pictures of Connor's family, routine and things he likes and recognizes. He enjoys that book (especially the picture of his Lightning McQueen car and the picture of Mommy's car-opens up to those two every time) and we can actually get him to respond to it.

Our speech goal is more two-word phrases. He is about six months behind in language and where he should have almost 100 words by now, he has about 20 that she counted.

But remember, 20 words is outstanding. Some parents wait forever to hear a word. Some never hear the word "Mommy" or "Daddy". I do not know what that would be like and I cannot offer anything but an extended hug to those parents and children. Yet, I do know that love is communicated in many, many ways, not just by the words we say. That is one lesson Connor has taught me.