Speech Therapy

Hannah the speech therapist came and evaluated Ellie. Although Ellie has a very limited repertoire, consisting of "mama," "yum," and "yeah," she is not considered delayed. Evidently on the bell curve anything below an 85 is delayed and Ellie is an 88 on her receptive skills and an 84 on her expressive skills. So no delay. Further, Hannah said, most kids don't really start picking up words until age 23 months. Since Ellie just started walking she's on track for speech and we should expect (and yet encourage) her speech. Hannah will come back to evaluate Ellie in 6 months, so at about 25 months. If Ellie isn't speaking at that point, we can talk about putting ST in her rotation.

Speech Therapy Eval

Ellie's speech therapy evaluation with Dr Riski was fantastic. She has no nasality and her palate seems to be working great. Dr Riski said he thought she had a small palate but I explained that she had one of the largest Dr. Williams had ever seen. He was very impressed with Dr. Williams' work (as am I). In any event, he gave me "Straight A's" on parenting. Ellie's speech is perfect, he wants us to keep reading to her, signing with her, talking to her, etc. He wants a big vocabulary which she will pick up as she ages, along with more verbal sounds (like "d" for dada). When we return in 6 months we will also see the pediatric dentist. She may still need speech therapy between the ages of 3-5 but right now, she's great!