Wyatt had his first speech evaluation with Anna at the University of Minnesota yesterday. Anna is the cleft team coordinator at the university and a speech and language pathologist. We have been working with her since we found out about Wyatt's cleft before he was even born. We hadn't seen her for 6 months or so and she was excited to see Wyatt and how he was growing. One of the first things she pointed out was how great his scar looks. :) I asked about all the tissue under his lip and she said that was actually a good thing. They can always take tissue out but it is hard to make up for it when it isn't there. This was reassuring to hear and makes a lot of sense.
With the appointment right in the middle of nap time and being in a new place Wyatt was pretty quiet at first. Anna played with him with toys and bubbles and got to hear a few words and sounds. To give him some more time to warm up Anna worked with me on some assessments while he played on his own. Anna had a list of words for us to go through to get an idea of how many words he knows. She would say the word and then I would tell her if I had heard him using it. Wyatt was running around the room doing his own thing when we started hearing him copying most of the words she read! We didn't count the words he copied that I didn't think he knew for the assessment but what a stinker! It turns out he has a lot more to say than we knew. I guessed he only had about 15 words but the assessment at the clinic showed at least 40. We just couldn't understand him. He seems to be leaving the consonants out of most of his words but is copying the vowels. When he talks it doesn't sound like anything but gibberish if you don't know what he is doing. Since the appointment I have really picked up on this. He repeats everything we say. Wyatt is also very intentional with his communication. He gesture and and talks in a way that shows you he knows what he is saying.
Anna gave us a list of goals to work on until our next meeting with her. There are early childhood and other resources available but we are going to start by working with Anna once a month. Wyatt is still really young and he could outgrow or overcome some of this on his own. We could just wait and see but we would rather try to get out ahead of it just in case. There are other resources we could look into if and when we need it. He will have a more formal speech assessment after he turns two. She did say it sounds like his palate is working well. This is a good sign because it means he may not need additional surgeries to help with anything physical preventing his speech from progressing.
We also got a chance to talk with Anna about Wyatt's eating. He struggled to start eating more solid foods but is getting better and trying new things all the time. Wyatt's issues with food appear to be sensory related. We will continue to introduce new foods slowly. This slow and steady approach seems to be working for him. We don't let ourselves get stressed out about it and introduce foods one at a time. Once he gets comfortable with something we give it some time and then try something else. The first real people food he would eat without gagging and throwing up was crackers. He likes saltines, Ritz and graham crackers. From there we moved to toast and fruits. Right now we are working on some proteins like turkey. It is hard to know how much of his difficulty with solid food is due to the cleft or just a sensory thing for him. Probably a combination of the two. With all the surgeries and other appointments with his mouth he may be a little more sensitive to what goes in there!
We met with Anna for almost 2 hours! It was really good to talk to her, catch up on what was going with Wyatt, and leave with some specific things to work on with his speech.
