Little T's speech evaluation

Little T had his speech evaluation on Sunday. Both of his OTs suggested it at the end of September. We knew he was somewhat delayed, because he spent January to May on Vincristine a chemotherapy drug, which paralyzed his vocal cords. For months he could make no sounds at all. Before Vincristine, he was starting to babble. After Vincristine and until he was 11 months old, all he said was "gah." Then he started saying other syllables like "bah" and "mah". Then finally earlier this month at 13.5 months he said "bye" his first word. Now he says "hi", "yeah yeah yeah yeah" a lot and "uh oh" once. I thought that four words was good enough, but apparently not. None of his words label a person or object.

He points. He reads books for about two minutes. He occasionally answers questions with yes. All good. However he doesn't repeat any sounds. He doesn't respond to no. He doesn't follow any directions.

The thing that worries me the most is not repeating sounds. He stares at you intently with furrowed brow and then tries to do something, but he just can't do it. So he laughs or says "gah". Even if you say something he can already say. Something seems broken there.

Now I'll have to say what his speech therapist said, which is there's a huge variation amongst kids, so if you have a normal kid who doesn't have any medical issues and is like Little T, then I probably wouldn't worry about it.

The speech therapist will recommend therapy obviously through Early Start. We'll see what happens.

I've been talking and reading to him everyday, and asking him to do things. That's how I always treat him, but it's apparently also good speech therapy. The therapist also suggested giving him a choice of two objects and asking him to point to one.