Two word sentences – at last.

I’m going to dedicate some time over the next couple weeks of blogs to the continuing story of Rob, my sensory child. If you’ve missed the first two, click on the “sensory child” tag at the bottom of this blog and you’ll find them. I’ve gotten many emails from parents who’ve sent the first two along to friends who are struggling with your sensory children. I’ve spent countless hours on the phone with Kindermusik moms who are walking along the same journey. Know that you are not alone. I hope these blogs give you hope, encouragement, and even some helpful information.

I told you in the last post that deep down inside my momma heart, I knew something wasn’t quite right with Rob. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was obvious that his speech wasn’t where it should be. I asked around and by divine appointment (because I literally don’t know else how to describe the series of events that enabled us to find and get an appointment with her), we landed in the office of Pam Marshalla.

Rob at just over 3 years (and big brother Nathan) around the time he started speech therapy."Get off me!" would have been a good first 3-word sentence.

Pam has been an SLP for over 30 years. She is also an author and well-known international speaker and teacher. We walked into her office, which was full of toys and other wondrous things. What she didn’t do was any formal testing; what she did do was just get down on the floor and begin playing with Rob, conversing with him all the while.

Later I asked why she didn’t do any testing. She said that she’d been an SLP so long that she could pretty much figure out what was going on by being with the children and relying on her intuition. She was right.

Now this was a child (as you remember from before), that strung syllables together in really long sentences that we mostly didn’t understand, or only the first or last words were intelligible. But they were obviously sentences; they had words and inflection. We just didn’t know what they meant. The words were somehow jumbled up or squished together in the middle.

Pam knew that if she could just get two word sentences out of Rob it would be a start. And wonder of wonders, she did! “Plane flies.” “Truck broken.” “Stop, car.” We were unbelievably thrilled. And the next week more two word sentences came out. In fact, she told us she wished she had videotaped Rob. Never in her 30 years had a child improved so quickly!

We thought we found the solution to Rob’s “issue”. (Whatever that was.) As time went on, Pam told us she thought Rob had some sort of Auditory Processing Disorder, but he had to be 7 before they could test him.

Rob knew the answers to the typical questions one might ask a 3 year old. “How old are you?” I am three. “What is your name?” My name is Rob. But somehow, he couldn’t take the words what is your name apart in his brain, and re-arrange them into the spoken words “My name is Rob”.

I spent weeks modeling these sentences to Rob. “What is my name?” My name is Mommy. “What is your name?” “Now, Rob says”:  My name is Rob. Slowly, it began to work. Next time, I’ll tell you why.

­-posted by Miss Analiisa, who can look back now over the four intense, very expensive years of therapy and see that it was so worth it.