finn started early intervention at the end of october of last year (2011). until early may 2012 he was seeing two therapists, an hour each, every week. one was for speech therapy and one for developmental therapy. sessions were held in our home and were play focused, meaning he didn't have to sit still and "learn", rather he learns through interactions and basic play.
when we started at 18(ish) months, finn could confidently say the word "car" and had a few other words within those first few weeks. he was significantly delayed in speech and had some minor delays in development. our main objectives were to increase his ability to do tedious tasks and of course, to increase his vocabulary and verbal communication skills.
he excelled in the developmental therapy and has largely caught up. where he couldn't do puzzles and wouldn't attempt new/difficult tasks, he now masters these and more in sessions and in everyday life. his patience has grown and he rarely throws new toys when confused or frustrated. he loves his developmental therapist and she is great about incorporating speech focus into their sessions. i was never concerned about this element of his development but we qualified for it and he has thrived, so i'm glad we've worked on the skills with him.
when we began speech, finn wouldn't imitate sounds/noise/words and expressed little interest in verbal communication. he understood commands and requests and had no trouble signing, he just wasn't using words. what was most helpful was that the therapist created ways for us to teach finley in everyday tasks and offered suggestions on how to increase mouth sounds. he quickly caught on and went through a period where he was adding noises (animals, vowels, etc.) and words almost daily. after a few months he dropped some of his initial words and was at a bit of a standstill. he still had not used two word sequences and just didn't seem interested in using his words unless prompted by us. he also went through a tantrum period in which sessions weren't very productive. eventually he came around and within a month or so he added 2 and 3 word phrases and seemed to really understand concepts.
he now communicates without prompting and has only a slight delay. he doesn't sing songs or engage in lengthy conversations with himself or others. he rarely babbles and his expressive communication is still somewhat limited. he easily labels objects he knows and can tell us what he needs/wants. he remembers activities and can describe them ("boat all gone" when a boat from a day or two ago leaves the water) but he can't string words together in conversation like other children his age can/do.
in may we decided to reduce his therapy to every two weeks per therapist. he still see someone once a week, but they rotate so he only sees each twice a month. at our 6 month meeting everyone agreed that finley has excelled in therapy and we are confident he'll be able to fully catch up (not that we thought it wouldn't happen!). he'll continue these appointments through the summer and then we'll re-evaluate his needs. i know he's still behind in speech but he's doing so great and i'm so proud. i'm happy we chose to do the therapy even though i questioned whether he truly needed it. eventually he would have talked, i'm sure, but having professional to help in the journey was certainly better than us struggling to figure out what methods to use. our pediatrician didn't pressure us to see someone or to have him evaluated. just as everyone else said, she agreed he would communicate verbally at some point but also noted that an eval couldn't hurt the situation! so...he's a talker now :)
(the pictures have nothing to do with the post, obviously.)
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