the difference a year makes

Every few months, I've been taking some video of Alex just talking in his natural environment.  I try not to push him too hard.  I don't want to see his "highlight reel".  I want to see where he is in that moment.

I do this so I can go back and see Alex's progress.  Just like most journeys, Alex's road to sound and speech has had its highs and lows.  Sometimes I feel we are in a plateau, and sometimes I feel we are in an explosion.

Last night, I put together his 20 month video clip of him talking.  And luckily for us, we are in an explosion.  At 20 months talking, Alex is basically a parrot.  He will say what you say.  In addition to that, he's making creative language too.  He has made sentences that are 3,4 even 5 sentences long.  The other day, Alex and Taylor were playing in the playroom and Tay had to go to the bathroom.  Alex ran out after her and said, "Teetee, where you go?"  It was amazing.

Alex has known all his colors since 3 months hearing (genius maybe -ha), but he now says all the colors too.  He can count to 16 with ease and understands the concept of having two of something.  And a big thing now is that he now knows all his letters by sight.  And he even likes writing some of them (I, O and T are his favorites).

Sounding like a broken record, we still have lots of clarity issues.  Alex still doesn't regularly close his lips while talking, taking away the sounds B/P/M from his speech.  He calls me Nonny.  I wish I could just say "BUDDY - CLOSE YOUR LIPS AND YOU'LL MAKE AN M SOUND", but I feel we have some oral motor issues that are causing the problems.  I'm hopeful as he gets older and more confident in his voice, we will overcome it, but for now, I'm Nonny and Bubble Guppies is Uh-Ul Guh-ies...sigh.  (Ironically, Nonny is a character from Bubble Guppies).

Anyway - here is his video at 20 months hearing.  His "I love you" at the beginning is the absolute sweetest.






What made me come over here to blogland was that in my timehop, I noticed I posted his "talking" video exactly a year ago today, at 8 months hearing.  We were super excited because Alex had JUST began vocalizing with meaning.  He makes a few adequate attempts at animal sounds and kinda says the word "down".   Alex started really using a small handful of words at 9 months hearing, so this really was the beginning of him using his voice.



I CANNOT believe how far he has come in a year.   It's incredible to see his process receptively, expressively and cognitively.   If he only had clarity with those few obvious missing sounds, I'd say he would be nearly where he should be.  I'd say he would be on par with some of his hearing peers who were considered "late talkers".  And I'd even go as far to say that his understanding of numbers, letters, counting and colors puts him a little ahead of the typical 2.5 year old.

Once again - this boy is a rock star.  Our journey is far from over, but he owns this journey and we are so crazy exceptionally proud of him!