One Battle At A Time

While I was experiencing technical difficulties ( 3 days with no hydro, locked out of google account etc. ) I thought about what next I wanted to post about. I decided that some victory shares were in order. I know how stressful and worrying the HFA life can be, but there is always room for improvement and there is always hope. To that effect I'd like to share some of our war stories with you, about the battles we've won!


Battle Story #1  Speech

Brief history, Tiger started talking at 9 months, got really sick and then stopped talking completely. We were back to  pointing, and pulling mommy around and lots and lots of screaming.  It was always clear to her father and I, that Tigerlily understood speech. She followed some directions and acted on things people were saying. We put Tiger into speech therapy when she hadn't been speaking for about 6 months. The wait and see, and give her time approach were obviously not working. We paid for private therapy and I paid close attention to what the therapist was doing and  replicated as much as I could at home.

We learned to speak more slowly. I needed to give Tiger more time to respond, offering the word for what she wanted 3 times. I needed to continue to acknowledge all attempts at communication, continue using the sign language etc.

The goal was to increase her comfort in all forms of communication.   One of the things that I noticed was that our therapist used exaggerated facial expressions and funny voices, and that when she did Tiger would engage. So I started doing this at home, offering words and phrases in different voices with funny faces and great animation. We worked this way for months. Meanwhile, we saw the specialist and were diagnosed and received all our reference letters and advice on probiotics and omega therapies and diet etc.  We started the little one on both Omegas and BioGaia live probiotics. All the while continuing speech therapy both privately and through the OEY government funded program, when we finally came up on the waitlist. At this point we had the yes nod,  and the no head shake, a couple words like up and mama were being thrown around as well.  The going was painfully slow and she was so very far behind in comparison to her peers, despite the constant effort on our part, the hours of therapy both at clinics and at home Tiger was mostly silent or screaming.

Then it happened, one day after physiotherapy, I took Tiger to a little village to visit the shops, go to the bakery for a cookie etc. Well we went into the toy store and Tiger was pulling me through the aisles when she pointed her little finger and said " Its a ball". (insert sounds of angels singing)
After over a year of non verbal communication I was given a whole statement. Needless to say, I bought the ball, after confirming that absolutely everyone in the shop had heard her speak! I may have cried just a little . ( I still have the ball )

Now I don't know what caused the click, the speech therapy, the Omegas, the probiotics or a combination, but after that point, the tide turned. The tide actually became a tsunami of words that  rushed in, and by the time we were discharged from speech, Tiger was scoring in the 98th percentile for language skills.

The words were always there, just trapped.  The doctors couldn't explain it, saying sometimes things come together. If your child is non verbal, please don't give up. 


The High Functioning Life, where victory can be ours!


HFL Mama.