The looks

My son does not have a physical disability. I have not had the experience that some Moms have had with looks that people will give a child that has a disability. Since he has a Speech & Language disability, it is very hard for people to tell unless they ask him questions. His biggest problem right now is answering "How are you?". He will answer with his name or his age. This weekend we went to see the Monster Trucks and an elderly lady asked him how he was doing. He answered with his name and she gave this look of confusion. She then looked at me and I told her that he has a Speech & Language disability. She then gave the look that I have seen so many people give children with physical disabilities. It is so frustrating to see that look. We moved on to our seats, but I was still frustrated over it.

Then I started to question myself and what we have been teaching Logan. I have been working with him a lot on answering the questions "Who are you?", "What is your name", and "How old are you?". We haven't completely started on "How are you?", but I can definitely see how he can get them confused. We are working more on answer how we are doing, but it seems to be harder for him to grasp than the other questions. One of his daycare teachers mentioned that she thought he might have a Cognitive Learning disability. The speech therapists and teachers at his current school said that they do see some signs of that, but not enough to call it that. However, they have started to notice that he is showing aggressive body language when he can not find the right words to say.

So now they are suggesting Occupational Therapy. I have found out from his doctor that this could help him and possibly even prevent ADD or ADHD which might happen if we do not teach him early how to deal with different stressful scenarios. I told them to teach me how to deal with the looks I am getting now when Logan can not speak to another person the way a normal 4 yr old can. She told me you get used to it after a while, because the look you will remember a year from now or 2 years from now is the look on his face when he answers a question properly. I agree, because I can see his face right now when he was telling us about the Monster Trucks the day after the show. He was so super excited and had so much fun! Now we will continue our work on "How on you?".

Where we are

I have a wonderful son that can brighten your day with his smile and laughter. He has so much energy that it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. He also has a speech problem and he tries his hardest to not let it get in the way of having fun. When I would hear other moms speak about speech problems that their child was having, it was more about the way they pronounced their words or that they couldn't speak at all. I kept an eye on the developmental skill charts and he was keeping up with them. So I never even thought that my son had a speech problem until he was 3 yrs old.

We started noticing that kids 6 months older than him could carry on a conversation and make up stories. Logan could talk and he would carry very short conversations with us, but nothing like the other children could. He was also beginning to "parrot" questions that we would ask or sentences we would say. So I called a Speech Therapy center to see about getting him tested. I had heard speech lessons could become very costly, so I was surprised to hear that our local school system could ask for the test to be performed and could provide speech therapy for free. Through speaking with Logan's daycare director, I found out that many Mom's are unaware that the school system can help their kids before they are of school age.

In fact, that is the very reason I decided to start blogging about Logan's speech therapy and progress. It is such an unknown area for us and we have been working with him for a year now. He has made good progress, but since he had a delay in his language skills he is having problems in Pre-K. I am very smart about most things IT, but I am not very knowledgable about what available resources there are for Speech Therapy. There is so much on the internet and we are taking everything in as much as we can, but all the information can be overwhelming and not all speech sites apply to him or his needs. So my way of figuring things out will be through this blog. They always say keeping a journal can help you more than you know, and I've heard the same is true about blogging.