My boy has had speech problems from the beginning. He used 'sa' and 'da' for an impressively large vocabulary. I took him to speech therapy starting at age three 90 miles away to the University.
It was such a frustrating experience. Aside from just being a mom worried about her kid who couldn't effectively communicate all that was inside him (and showing little to no improvement as he grew), the people at the therapy center gave me so few of the answers I was desperately seeking. They failed to recognize his vocabulary; how would they know that when he said, 'sa' that time it meant car and this time it meant bear? I wasn't allowed to be present to translate. And all they would tell me was that he had a serious problem and would be in therapy until Junior High school!! Well, with my three year old, that felt like an eternity we could not afford. Not to mention a couple hundred a month in cost, gas and food!
So I pulled him out and began working with him at home. Not without tears, teasing, and 'helpful' suggestions from others that he suffered from all sorts of problems from hearing impairment to autism. And we continually fielded the concern of family and friends because we were no longer seeking professional help. I did seek help from the local schools, but never got any, so we continued to work on our own. Slowly, but surely, he grew to be able to speak intelligibly.
The last and seemingly permanent hold outs were the K sound and the hard G sound. I basically resigned myself to the idea that he had a physical problem we would not be able to overcome.
About nine weeks ago I bought a homeschool speech therapy book and implemented it into out day. Even at ten, there were tears--more sad and hopeless now. He had to fight gagging as we did the exercises together.
But today...today, October 4, 2009, my ten year old said, 'G...g...girl.' What can I say? What can I say? I praise the Lord!! I wracked my brain, shouting in my head, 'WHO can I call???' "WHO knows?' My big sis!
So, she got to hear 'g...g...girl.'
I am telling you now I deserve a medal of valor for finishing the last of the school assignments, greeting Daddy and watching his reaction to 'g...g...girl,' waiting for him to change clothes before I went to my bed and sobbed. I just cried it all out. No words came to my head--how delightful! And I reached for my Bible. I am not big on the whole idea of opening the Book and reading a magic message, but I did let it fall open, and found Psalm 34.
Life goes on. There is still work to do. He is still needing to be more patient with his sister. The house needs cleaning, they haven't memorized their poems for school yet. I need to do the grocery shopping. But this is big. This is our big. And I praise Him Who loves us and gives us all good things.
Christopher's cousin is completely cool!!! I just want to carve in granite, "Great God!" "Good going!" and "Kajagoogoo!!!"
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed and proud with Max's efforts, and--even more--I know that this will add to the already amazing character he possesses.