Apraxia of Speech . Week 17

Ryder had private Speech Therapy and Early Intervention this week.  He continues to make gradual progress.  Very gradual.  Early Intervention will end in July, when Ryder turns 3 - it's taken Ryder quite a while to "warm up" to this Therapist, so it will be sad to see the sessions end.

On a speech-related note, Ryder has been approved for the SpecialEd Preschool through our School District.  He will attend 2 hours/day, 4 days/week.  The school's bus will pick him up at the babysitter's home, and take him back. 

Monday was Ryder's Preschool Evaluation.  Despite me asking them to skip the hearing and vision tests (Ryder's hearing was tested by the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind in August, and he scored "at least average", and his vision is closely monitored by an Opthamologist due to the possibility of Congenital Cataracts), they insisted.  And, as I thought, it put Ryder in a bad mood.  Really, though, who likes things being stuck into your ears?!

The second test, Articulation, was not much better.  The woman providing the testing was very static.  She showed Ryder a picture similar to this one:

Picture Source

And, she asked him "What is the horse doing?".  Ryder responded, "No thank you" (we've worked hard with Ryder that he say "no thank you" when he doesn't want something, rather than just yelling "no").  She asked again.  He buried his head in my shoulder.  I asked Ryder to tell me the color of the horse.  "Brown".  To tell me what a horse says.  "Neigh neigh".  Ryder, tell me what the horse is doing.  "Up!".  I respond to him, telling him that is correct, the horse is jumping up over the fence.  The woman, without expression, says "That's wrong.  The horse is "jumping"".

Uh.  Yes, lady, I can see that.  However, Ryder can't say "jumping".  So, rather than finding different words that would demonstrate his ability to articulate specific sounds, she gave up.

The third (and final) test was similar to the one he had in August to qualify for Early Intervention.  It measures his comprehension/cognitive language versus the expressive language.  The first part of the test was the comprehension/cognitive piece.  And, Ryder was still in a foul mood.  However, within 5 minutes Ryder was participating willingly.  This lady was MUCH more engaging.  She moved the order when Ryder was losing interest in the current activity.  She played catch with him to get him to answer the questions.  When it came to the expressive piece, Ryder tried.  Hard, really.  But, he scored extremely low - which, of course, we expect.

After the three tests, I met with the Director.  He said based on the third test alone, Ryder qualifies for the Preschool.  He may have the Early Intervention Therapist re-test the Articulation, but regardless of the score, it wouldn't change his qualification.

There's good and bad in this.  Patrick and I are grateful that Ryder will get significantly more Speech Therapy - although the Preschool is theoretically 8 hours/week, not all of this time will be speech-focused, but it will be more than he receives now.  It's hard, though, to say that our little boy is in SpecialEd Preschool.  There's a stigma attached to it.  There shouldn't be.  But, there is.  We're confident this will be a good choice made for Ryder.  He will do well.  It's just hard on this end.  Ryder will love it.