At Benjamin's 15-month appointment, our pediatrician became a little concerned over Benjamin's lack of talking. The books and doctors say that at 12-months of age, babies should be saying Mama and Dada, at 15-months of age should be at 5-10 words, and by 18-months of age at 20+ words. Benjamin didn't start saying Mama and Dada until close to 15-months old, and by 18-months, was only at 3 or 4 words (Mama, Dada, Cocoa and his version of Thank You). So, at our 18-month appointment, with Ben's lack of progress, he ordered a speech evaluation. The evaluation was done about six weeks later, and it confirmed that Benjamin had a speech delay. His receptive communication skills (Benjamin point to the dog, to your nose, take off your shoes, etc.) were great; in fact, he tested out at a 2-year old level. But, his verbal communication was behind. So, we are now in weekly speech therapy.
Just in the few weeks we've been working with him, his speaking has exploded - he's adding new words and sounds almost on a daily basis. He's now added uh-oh, dog, car, bubble, Nana and Gabby. In speech therapy, we are working on animals and animal sounds, and he's almost saying moo (cow) and ruff (dog). It's pretty amazing to watch his progress and see his thirst to learn. And, I think he loves the one on one attention! Speech therapy is pretty cool - they use an iPad and various learning apps on it to help facilitate the therapy, in addition to the old-fashioned speech play. We go to the Pediatric Rehabilitation center at Memorial Hospital.
Here's a video from this week of Benjamin practicing his new words. It's tough to get him to sit still long enough to practice! As you can see, he's a pretty happy kid!
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