Today, February 15th, we had a meeting with Jacinda's Cleft Team. We scheduled the meeting because we were concerned with her lack of progress with her speech. So here is who we met with and the results of each appointment:
Her palate surgeon: He says her palate looks perfect. There are no complications with her palate repair at all. He says there is no physical reason for her lack of progress in speech.
Her ENT: Her ears look great, except for lots of wax. Her last hearing test was perfect, but we should schedule a follow-up just to keep an eye on her hearing.
The Orthodontist: Her teeth look great. She will get orthodontic work and work on her jaw in a few years. He said it will not be before she is 6 years old. It depends on when her 6-year molars come in and she's getting bigger.
Speech Pathologist: We finally got some answers here. The Speech Pathologist agreed with us that Jacinda should be progressing much quicker than she is. Finally, someone agreed with us. Honestly, that was a HUGE relief! Her speech teacher (and a few others before this one) has just been saying "it's a slow process. Be patient." But all along, we've felt like Jacinda should be saying more than she is.
So today, we learned that we were right. The speech pathologist asked if anyone had ever mentioned Apraxia of Speech to us. Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder and is diagnosed by a Neurologist. This would be unrelated to her cleft lip and palate. Basically, it's a disorder where a person knows what they want to say, but it will not come out the way they want it to. We're not certain that Jacinda has it, but she has several symptoms of it.
The plan is for Jacinda's speech teacher to call the Speech Pathologist we saw today and hopefully they can work together to come up with an aggressive treatment plan. Apraxia of Speech requires a specific speech therapy treatment plan. For 2 months, we're going to pursue that. Then, if things aren't improving, we'll make an appointment with a Neurologist and start looking at some other options. There are some other Auditory Processing Disorders that we will investigate if we get to that point.
We have a plan and we feel very good about it!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
So glad you got some answers, even if some of them result in more questions. There is a good book called something like The EFA solution and it is about essential fatty acids and speech. For children who are responders, EFAs can make a huge difference. You can also look into DMG powder which also helps with speech in some children. Elias took both.. but the EFAs caused the most improvement..
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment on the BWing website. Congrats to you too! Playing catch up on your blog - good luck with finishing up the homestudy. Glad to hear that people are working with you to help your daughter with her speech.
I see you're in VA - we are too - up near DC. Sending up a prayer for your daughter's progress and for your adoption process and fundraising! Good luck!