Our son was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP) and has been in speech therapy since he was 18 months of age. I value private speech therapy and we are faithful in keeping our weekly appointments, incorporating speech techniques at home to gain consistency and working on a great deal of repetition. It’s just that at this point we have now added orthodontic appointments to our ‘have to’ weekly list and he has a palatal expander and…
Our son’s tongue is tied, but not so much so that his plastic surgeon or speech therapist recommends that he have surgery to clip the frenulum (tissue that is connected to the underside of his tongue) right away. When our son sticks his tongue out the tip of his tongue gets pulled into a “V” shape and he calls this his lizard tongue. His surgeons tell us he is tongue tied. Thankfully, our surgeons understand and agree that there…
Early speech intervention will make a difference in your child’s development and progress with regards to his ability to communicate effectively. Having a multi-disciplinary approach to our son’s care through the Cleft Palate Center has been a crucial part of his development over the years and especially in the beginning stages for his speech development because we had all of our resources in one place. I remember thinking that the suggestion for him to begin speech therapy as soon as…
As part of our son’s growth and progress, reading is yet another challenge we are working towards overcoming. The first step has been to find an Education Specialist for reading therapy. His first grade teacher called us in for our parent/teacher conference and what we already knew was confirmed. He was struggling with his reading. This should not have come as a complete shock but hearing the difficulties he was having and knowing that I did not personally have the…
As you begin your journey through speech therapy you will find more often than not that you are going to go through speech therapists as if you are popping bon bons while sitting at home watching Dr. Oz. Totally do not know what a bon bon is but most people think it’s what I’m doing at home all day so I like to reference it whenever I can. Sorry – off topic. It seems that every time we finally get…
Today was Gavin’s first day with his Education Specialist. Her name is Suzanne and she came highly recommended. Suzanne came to our house for the therapy and worked for one full hour with him. He was responding to her techniques and generally seemed to enjoy the therapy. I quietly folded laundry in the next room listening to the both of them work together and really hearing what it was she was teaching him so that I could mimic her technique…
As your child grows and begins to babble you will notice that it is going to be slightly more difficult for them to form the words you and I are used to hearing. This is going to cause a great deal of frustration both on your part and your child’s because they are not going to be able to express themselves in quite the way that they want to. You may experience anxiety of your own because you simply…
