What chu talkin' 'bout?

A few months ago we noticed Luke wasn't really on track verbally with his age. He wasn't saying any words. He wasn't referring to us as "mama" or "dada." It basically was all about pointing and "eh eh" noises. Anytime I tried to get him to repeat a sound he would just stare at me like "what chu talkin' 'bout crazy woman?"

Once when we were at the doctor's office when he was about 17 months old his pediatrician said that he should be saying several words by now and that it was up to us if we wanted to look into speech therapy.

Thinking that he most likely will get caught up on his own we decided to wait a little bit. We knew that most likely this small delay was due to the very large amount of ear infections that he had before his ear tubes (and even recently at the beginning of the year he started getting them about other week with the tubes in place still)

Once we started to realize that soon we'll be having another baby and therefore less time to work with Luke we thought it would be best to go ahead and have him evaluated with First Steps. Plus one of my patients at work used First Steps for her son at this same age and gave me a boost to do it.

If you aren't familiar with First Steps- let me just say it's a pretty amazing program. Luke had physical therapy through them when he was around 7-9 months old because he wouldn't turn his head to the right at all and rarely used his right side. This program provides several types of therapy for children up til age 3 either for free or a very discounted rate based on income.

Luke's evaluation went well and cognitively his scores were high but he was lacking in speech and social skill.

Right before we started speech therapy it was like a light bulb went off for Luke and for the first time he started repeating some sounds and saying a few words (ough oh, shoes)

After 2 months of speech therapy with his therapist, Ms. Sarah, Luke has come a LONG way. He can sign several words and often says them along with the sign. He signs more, please, all done, and help (plu s few others we rarely use so I can't remember). He can say "mama", "dada", "shoe", "bubble", "thank you", "food", "water", "papa", "baba" (for Kiba) and pretty much can repeat or attempts to repeat any word you ask him to. He does several animals signs and knows most of his body parts.

Listen to him making different sounds with Sarah. Just a few weeks ago he couldn't do any of these!

Once he figured out that saying "mama mama mama" will get my attention he pretty much sounds like this on a regular basis....

If we pass cows while we are driving...

Luke: "Mama mama mama mama"
Me: "Yes Luke?"
Luke: "Moo!"
Me: "Did you see a cow?"
Luke: "Mama mama mama mama mama"
Me: "Yes Luke?"
Luke: "Moo!"
...and repeat several times.

I love it.