Christopher's Language Delay

We are on the road to having Little Mister Christopher's language issues identified so we can get that boy talking! Our "case" goes before Fairfax County Early Childhood Special Education Preschool Program's Local Screening Committee on Tuesday 16 November. We are expecting he will be referred into the system for services.



My work friend, Michele, knew of a mutual contact whose child also exhibited developmental delays at about age three, so she put Dave & I in touch by email, we may meet for a bit on Tuesday if our work schedules permit. His son, also a Christopher, was diagnosed with Severe Apraxia, which of course I immediately Googled, and while I am not jumping to conclusions, many of the Apraxia indicators do seem to fit w/our Christopher's typical behavior. The Family Start Guide at Apraxia-Kids.org was a decent intro.



I told JR yesterday that his new job starts soon: he's about to become a full-time speech therapist. Whatever Christopher's particular language development diagnosis is, I feel certain he will be registered for at least speech therapy, and my initial research indicates that most parents have success with therapy at least three times per week. And of course the success of therapy depends on the willingness/ability of children and parents to practice at home. I hope therapy with a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) includes teaching the parents, I'm thinking language therapy would be most effective done ALL THE TIME, we've got to turn language use into fun 24/7 language therapy.