Rachel - posted on 02/20/2009 ( 2 moms have responded )
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Hi everyone,
My name is Rachel and I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter with an expressive language delay. She was diagnosed last Nov '07 at 30 months and has been in twice weekly private speech sessions since. She has made significant improvement - at the time she was diagnosed she had the expressive language of an 18 month old and within 4 months of speech therapy she had already gained 10 months of language! Her receptive language and comprehension are all at age level or above. She is quite verbal for an expressive language delay child so it often takes people by surprise that she has a language delay. My husband and I struggled with our fears for at least a year that took a devastating toll on us! My mother-in-law tried to find a reason why our daughter had this delay- things like "oh maybe she has this problem because you read too much to her as a baby and carried her in a sling so much" (?!?) So, needless to say, sometimes it is quite tough to handle all of the outside criticism and unwanted advice! :)
Things are much better now as she has made such progress in a year -- it is thrilling to know that speech therapy is helping her tremendously. The first year of therapy really focused on her expressing her wants/needs and this second year is really about expanding her conversational skills. She is very shy around other children because she lacks a lot of the social give and take that language provides. She is in a preschool program within our school system so she also receives an additional hour per week of a small group speech therapy class that we are so happy with. She likes to be around children but she still isn't too vocal with them without us prompting her. Our speech teacher says this is normal for speech and language kids - do any of your children struggle with this? Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself to the group and say hello!
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