Speech Therapy

Ryan's former speech therapist,  Nikki, left to take another job back in May and we've been on lists and waiting for a replacement speech therapist since then. Here's a quick reminder about our buddy, Nikki. Before she left, Nikki did a quick screening on both Stokes and William and decided they both could use an evaluation to see if they qualified for and/or needed any speech therapy. We loved Nikki and were so sad to see her go. She did a great job!

Fast forward a few months after waiting a while (because, really, who knew there was a Speech Therapist shortage in Greenville!!??) and we got a formal evaluation done. The person who did our evaluation did not impress me and I decided I did not want to use her for services moving forward. She did, however, score the evaluations and Stokes and Ryan both qualified for speech. William is probably a little behind as well, but he's close enough to the normal range that he doesn't need extra help. 

Enter April, our new Speech Therapist! She will work with Stokes and Ryan on a weekly basis. In case the name April sounds familiar, our Early Interventionist is also named April, so that could make for some interesting conversations and future confusion, but hey, after being on a speech waiting list for 2 months, we're OK with a little name confusion! :)

April has come for 3 appointments at this point and is great! She is very patient with the boys and has gotten Stokes to say quite a few words for her. Along that same line, I think Stokes is very close to a break-through where he'll begin to talk up a storm. Stay tuned! Hopefully he won't need therapy for too long. 

April does not have much experience with feeding, which is an area that I'd like for us to focus on with Ryan, so it's a concern of mine. Emily, our OT, does work with Ryan on feeding occasionally, but he was getting a 2 pronged approach with Emily and our old speech therapist, Nikki. I'm hoping that April will either be willing to do a little feeding training, work with Emily in a combined effort with some feeding goals/therapy or be willing to just try it. She's been very honest that it's out of her comfort zone, but I do think it's an area where Ryan needs to progress. He's made some major strides, but is still not 100% on solid food, still drinking from a bottle vs a sippy cup, and still doesn't self-feed. I don't want to put too much focus on it, because he is progressing, and I think he'll continue to do more and more, but I also don't want to not give it the attention that it needs. I really like April and don't want to not work with her over the feeding issue, so we'll see how it goes for a while. If I feel like Ryan really needs more help with feeding, there are a few options. We can 1) look for a new speech therapist with more feeding experience, 2) try to see if we can get Emily to add another weekly appointment for 30 minutes to work exclusively with feeding, 3) begin going to Clarity specifically to work with a feeding therapist. All of this will also be contingent upon insurance and BabyNet approval. Sooooo....we're just going to see how it all plays out. Did I mention I hate making decisions? Sigh...

April and Stokes

April and Ryan

We look forward to getting to know April better and seeing some progress with both boys with their speech.

In other therapy news, William had an Occupational Therapy Evaluation done by Ryan's OT, Emily, and it was determined that he did not need OT. Yay! Check it off the list. The OT eval was a recommendation we got from the Development Clinic that we attended in April (yes, it took that long to have the conversations, get the paperwork complete, get everything through the systems, make the appointment, complete the eval and get the paperwork back - whew!). In addition, William will have his last PT appointment this Friday. Ashley, our PT, thinks he's made some major strides with his gross motor skills and doesn't feel like he even needs therapy anymore. Great news!