AJ's Speech Appointment

AJ was a star. I prepared him. I told him we were going to be talking to a lady. I told him she would ask him questions, blah blah blah.

If you know AJ at all, then you know that he gets really shy and usually won't talk to new people until he's very comfortable.

So, if you were unaware of why I was taking AJ to the speech and language pathologist, here's the situation....
He has a lisp, like Cindy Brady, you know? 'th' instead of 's'
He only started to say the 'f' sound at the beginning of words just recently. Before, he was saying 'wish' for 'fish'.
He says 'fwing' for swing.
He doesn't usually use the 'h' sound at the beginning of words. For instance, for 'hospital', he'd say 'opital'.
And a week ago, he started stuttering on the first word of a sentence which I've read is very normal, but worth mentioning.
Also, I need to kind of translate him for strangers.

Now many of you will say, "But Sonja, calm down. He's only 2."

I wanted to be on the safe side. It's a win win situation. I'm going to go there and they're going to say, "Don't worry, it's all normal. He's fine." or they'll say, "Yes, it's a concern. Here's what you can do to fix it."

So, we walked in to the appointment, and she asked me if he'd like to play with cars or farm animals. I said, "Let me ask him. AJ would you like to play with cars or farm animals?"

AJ answered, "Cars please." Thank goodness. We were off to a good start. He's talking in front of a stranger.

Well, he demonstrated all the stuff I was talking about. She got to hear the stutter, the no 'h', the lisp, the new 'f' sound, etc.

She said everything was completely normal and totally developmental. She said there's nothing to do right now about the lisp because he's so young. Maybe when he's 4, if he still has it. As she observed him more and more and talked him, she just kept smiling and laughing because he's 'so way beyond expectations' for his age by way of communication.

'For fun' she said, for the sake of her 'student' that was observing, she did the more in depth questions. She said, "He'll pass without a doubt, but just so you see what we're hoping for at this age."

So the questions were things like
Can he name one colour?
AJ can name about 25 colours including 'pinky purple' and 'macaroni and cheese orange'. lol
Does he understand function?
Like she showed him a sock, a key, and a cup, and asked him, "Which one is for drinking." She wanted him to point to the cup, but he pointed to it and said, "The cup is for drinking."
She wanted him to have about 1-2 words per sentence, but he has about 10-12.

Bottom line, 'communication' is definitely not a problem, but I knew that.

The lisp, we'll watch it. We don't want it to get worse. But she's not concerned.

Same with the stutter. We'll see her again in November.

They were loving him. She said that they don't get to have kids that 'advanced' in there very often.

All I could think was, "Makenna would blow her away."

So, anyhow. He's fine. She's not concerned. But she'll see us again in November or so to check on his stutter, but she said that sometimes this stage lasts 3-6 months.

She asked about the 'needing to translate'. I said that I understand, almost all of what he says, close friends understand most of what he's saying, and strangers understand about half or so.

She said, that's totally normal. Phew.

AJ was really well behaved. He was hardly shy at all.

On the way home, I picked him up some ice cream and said, "Thanks for doing all the talking to the lady, and thanks for answering her questions." He said, "I told her what was for drinking. A cup for drinking." I thought it was funny that it stood out for him.

And that's it.