Since conception, Colt always wanted to be on the move. He would roll, kick and stretch constantly while in utero. He was already trying to lift his head up shortly after birth and hated to be swaddled. He practically skipped crawling, started walking just shy of 11 months old, and shortly after that he was running. My boy has been nothing short of high energy from day 1. While it is a golden rule of mothers not to compare your child to other children, I could not help myself. I would look around at other kids similar in age to my own and noticed that their energy level was not even in the same ballpark as my child. Considering the extroverted, exuberant, energetic man that my introverted, lackadaisical-self choose as a husband, I just assumed that he mirrored his father in more ways than just size and looks.
By Colt’s first birthday, my mommy sense was tingling once more as I noticed some other differences between him and other children. Colt did not wave, point, or look to me for help. If he wanted something, he would simply get it for himself. He also did not answer to his name or have any reaction to loud noises. If he was watching cartoons, nothing could break his gaze. He was babbling quite a bit, but not forming any real words. One trip to the pediatrician and a normal hearing test later, I was assured that he was just a boy and boys just develop slower. The doctor said give him a year, if nothing changes we will seek some sort of therapy.
Colt continued to be my wild, rough, energetic, not speaking or listening little boy. Again, I lovingly blamed this all on my husband, as I certainly never possessed that kind of energy. I attributed his lack of speech to never being able to slow down enough to learn to talk, and his lack of listening to just being stubborn. Yet, he still did not point at things, or wave hello or goodbye. Since we had been fortunate enough to have my mother-in-law be our “daycare” when my husband and I were at work, his lack of speech and general wildness was then contributed a lack of interaction with other children. We managed to find a part-time preschool for Colt, thinking that the interaction with peers would be the perfect fix. When bringing up my concerns at Colt’s 2-year wellness visit, and mentioning that we were starting preschool soon, I was met with “Let’s wait until he is 3 to seek speech therapy,” and “He is just a boy and that is how boys are. Preschool will help.” Neither of those answers satisfied me, but I left thinking about my lack of experience with children and surely this doctor knew more than I did. Preschool began, and one short month later we were asked to leave, by the director, because our son was not developmentally ready for that type of setting. He was having beyond the standard level of “Mommy, don’t leave me” tantrums and disrupting other children. Colt also started throwing toys in frustration and was becoming a safety risk. This tore my heart to pieces. The director was as nice as she could be and truly did everything she could to help my son adjust, he just simply was not ready for that type of environment. She then suggested speech therapy as a way to help. My heart broke even more, but she and this situation gave me the fire and validation that I needed to demand more for my son. One firm voicemail later, our pediatrician sent over our referral to Auburn Therapy and Learning Center.
Enter Ms. Kathy…
First we set up an initial evaluation to fully assess how much, if any, delay did Colt have. After a series of questions about Colt’s habits, milestones, likes and dislikes, Colt was taken back for an evaluation. At this point, I was still hoping that my ever faithful, rarely wrong, gut feeling was indeed wrong just this once. After his evaluation, my husband and I were brought back to the room with Colt and it was confirmed that he did indeed have a delay. Our son was behind in verbal, cognitive, and fine motor skills. It was confirmed that he did indeed have poor eye contact for a child of his age, and did not request the need for help as other children his age should. I began to cry. The overwhelming feeling of mother’s guilt washed over me. I should have pushed sooner, I should have listened to myself, and of course this was all my fault. I was worried about his future, his diagnosis, as a million other questions raced through my mind. Colt could tell I was sad and offered me the aqua wire waste basket from the other side of the room in an effort to make his Mommy happy. Ms. Kathy handled my wave of emotions like a seasoned pro, as I am sure that I am not the first mother she’s seen have a nervous breakdown over the unknown. She suggested groups that may be helpful and mentioned that the state has an early intervention program that I had never even heard of. She also reminded me that though he was delayed, he was happy and healthy. I needed that calm at that moment. I needed to be reminded that of all things, this was definitely not the worse that could happen. She reminded me that 2 years old was still considered early intervention, and now I was doing the best thing possible for him.
6 months later of twice a week visits, and Colt has shown so many signs of improvement. His eye contact is growing, he has begun pointing at things, and he will point at pictures to corresponding toys that he wants to play with. We even have a few words! Yellow, apple, no, ball, bubble and the occasional go. Colt’s favorite word so far is bye bye.
When he is ready to go, he will, with the most serious toddler face, announce “bye bye.” He is making connections between pictures, distinguishing between pizza and frog in his favorite “Feed Aubie” game. I can see my wild boy pause to think about things when he is asked a question, he will ponder my request to “pick it up” when a toy is thrown on the ground, and now will occasionally do as asked. He knows when I say sit, to place his bottom on the nearest chair, and eat means to run to the kitchen table. Throughout therapy, Ms. Kathy noticed that Colt had trouble being still, and would often knock into things on purpose. She mentioned a term that I had never heard before, “sensory seeking.” This coupled with his fine motor delays, and our inherent trust in Colt’s Ms. Kathy, we then requested an occupational evaluation referral from our doctor.
Enter Ms. Debbie…
During Colt’s occupational evaluation it was concluded that while he was too young for official testing given his still lacking ability to follow directions, through various activities it was believed
that he was, in fact, sensory seeking and fine motor delayed. She immediately asked about Colt’s crawling history, which my wild boy skipped, and explained how skipping a step may not look like a big deal but it is indeed all connected to his development. His lack of using his hands during the crawling phase could have easily crossed over to his inability to grasp an object with 2 fingers instead leading to whole-handedly snatching whatever item he wanted. While this is something we just started, I can already tell that it will make a difference in Colt’s continued growth.
What do our visits look like?
Our twice a week speech visits start with Colt running straight to the door to go back to his room and to his Ms. Kathy. Occasionally he is started out on the indoor swing or jumping into beanbag chairs to help calm his “sensory seeking” brain before we get started. Colt, 9 times out of 10, is usually very excited to see his Ms. Kathy, and very upset if he has to wait in the waiting room. That 1 time out of 10 that he is not happy is usually due to the hard life of being 2 years old. After his sensory input is fulfilled enough to get him to focus, we play an exciting round of silly sounds. A cute song, that is forever burned into my brain, of different sounds for Colt to work on. Such as the “B” in ball or the “Tuh” ticking sound of a clock. Colt’s favorite part is the “Ooooo” of the ghost.
After the silly sounds song, the therapy session tends to be self-led by Colt. Every activity, every toy, has is a learning tool in disguise to get even the most independent of children to participate. He may bounce the ball, request bubbles, ask for the toy to go, practice p-sounds for the pop toy, or identify proper pictures to “feed” his best friend, Aubie. Most recently he has been doing great with saying, or at least getting the S sound out, for his new favorite toy, shark. Colt smiles and laughs during his sessions, and immediately runs to Ms. Kathy to play with “his” toys. When he is ready to go, he will now announce it in a resounding “BYE BYE” and head for the door. Just in our session earlier today, we got a “DaDa” when looking at his father, and a brief “MaMa” when looking to me.
While I still have some mom guilt over not pushing to get intervention earlier, I feel more than comfortable with the level of care he is receiving at Auburn TLC. He has made great strides in such a short amount of time. I am thoroughly impressed by what they were able to teach my son, and what they were able to teach us as parents to help Colt. I look forward to the day when I wish my son would stop talking so Mommy can get some peace.
Auburn TLC, Ms. Kathy, and Ms. Debbie will forever be a part of our family.
Trust your parental instincts and seek an evaluation if you are questioning your child’s development. I wholeheartedly recommend that you trust Auburn TLC to be an invaluable part of that journey.
Auburn TLC offers speech, occupational, and feeding therapy for children and adults. Children ages 2-5 can received a free pediatric speech and language screening by appointment without a referral.
Ms Kathy was my daughters first speech therapist almost 14 years ago. We still adore her and consider her an important part of our family. She reassured this mother in more ways than she will ever know.
She is truly the best!
Comments are closed.