I know I’ve been slacking a bit in posting.  I went from several posts each day to almost nil.  I’m a bit distracted.

Last week I had a chat with Anna Grace’s speech therapist about her future, where she’s headed.  I always thought that AG was too ahead of the game to qualify for school based preschool.  Not so.  That was a bit of a denial killer.  (Denial’s not just a river in Egypt!) But, her speech therapist said some things that made me feel like she really did understand Anna Grace and where she was at developmentally.  Finally, somebody admits that they think Anna Grace is normal when it comes to her cognitive development (for lack of a better term… her I.Q.) and her receptive speech (the speech she understands).

The speech therapist and I discussed Verbal Apraxia again and I have been doing more and more research.  Everything I read sounds just like Anna Grace including the fact that these kids are often misdiagnosed as having autism…. just as Anna Grace was last summer.  That pretty much sealed the deal for Dana and I.  The description of how they drop the end of a word (an Anna Grace specialty) or add an extra vowel or syllable ("Up" for Anna Grace is  Uppa).  The clincher though was seeing that these kids with normal IQ have a high rate of being "diagnosed" as autistic during the ages of 15 to 30 months only to have those diagnosis’ repealled by the age of 48 months.

I did wonder what this meant long-term for Anna Grace, will she ever speak normally, etc.  I found a website, The Talking Page , where parents have submitted recording of their children speaking at various stages of development.  This was a reality check.  There is a little girl on the site named Ashlyn who reminds me so much of Anna Grace.  But… it was through listening to her that I felt like I have to stop telling myself that all of this will be "fixed" by time AG hits three.  It won’t.  That’s just the long and the short of it.  It won’t be fixed by the time she’s three.

The good news?  Yep, there is some.  (Warning… this may just be my last bit of denial hanging on… we’ll see).  Many of these kids seem to improve greatly between the years of three and five.  AND, many of them on this website were completely non-verbal by the time they were three.  I’ve got a chatterbox running through this house that has nearly 50 words.  So she’s a bit ahead of that.  Other good points… Many of these kids didn’t start therapy until they were 2 or 3.  Anna Grace started therapy at 16 months.  So, I have hope, lots of it.  I know in my heart of hearts that she will be fine.  My big concern right now is not allowing her problems with speech start to affect the way she views herself and her ability to make friends with others. 

So… long story to say that all is well…just a little more reality based than it was a short time ago.  I think everything that I’ve heard from the speech therapist was necessary.  It was through that conversation that I started researching, learning other therapy options, etc.  I’ve been trying new things and having good results.  How good?  Yesterday, out of nowhere, my little AG said Butterfly ("utterfly") when we were looking at her book.  I had pointed to that thing so many times.  She knew what it was the whole time.