Kids on the Move, Round 2

A couple months ago, before Declan was born, we finally had KOTM out to the house to evaluate Averie again for her speech delay.  As with the first evaluation in July last year, she was on track for social development and motor skills, her receptive speech was at the advanced level (95th percentile), and her expressive speech was practically nil -- 4th percentile, which means she only speaks as much as or more than 4% of her kids her age.

Chris and I have been wondering in particular about the possibility of speech apraxia as the cause of her delay.  Apraxia is a neurological disorder where there is a disconnect between the brain and the muscles that move the mouth to form a word.  One of the hallmarks of it is advanced receptive speech, and severely delayed expressive speech, which fits Averie to a T.  We still haven't reached an official diagnosis, so it may be apraxia, a general articulation disorder or something else entirely.

We've been meeting with a developmental therapist twice a month since April, and we've just started meeting with a speech-language pathologist and we'll see her twice a month as well. 

Averie is doing well with imitating sounds and even though the sound/word she produced can be wildly different from what she is trying to say (another common sign of apraxia), at least she is trying.  That's more than we could say a couple months ago!  Maybe dropping the binky habit will help, too. 

At the very least, she'll continue in the KOTM program until she turns 3 years old, then she will be re-evaluated by the local school district.  If she still qualifies for services, she'll be eligible to attend their special preschool where she'll continue to receive therapy. 

Some days are quite discouraging, and I wonder if it will be months, or even years, before she can say "I love you, Mommy!" or tell me about all the places her imagination takes her.  Somebody smack me if, one day, I complain about her talking my ear off because I need to be reminded to not take those words for granted.