In a previous post, I talked about my son's speech delay, and the feeling of vindication when the new ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctor told us that everything from his snoring to his speech was connected.
It's now nearly four weeks after he had tubes inserted into his ears. The first week or two, we anxiously watched for signs of anything...signs of post-surgical infection, signs of improved hearing...or even better, signs of improved speech!
The good news is that he has definitely shown signs of improved hearing and speech and no signs of any negative outcomes from the surgery. There is no bad news.
It's clear to us now that the poor kid couldn't hear clearly and had simply adapted to hearing everything muffled. Now that he can hear, he's trying harder than ever to repeat the speech sounds he hears and he's making progress so quickly.
I think the biggest problem at this point is that a lot of his poor speech has become a habit and now that he can hear sounds better, he'll have to work to undo some of his mispronunciations. I have no doubt that NOW is when speech therapy would be the most beneficial.
But I have had a strange side effect from all this. I want to forget that he ever had a speech delay. I don't need to hurry his progression along; he's doing just fine on his own, but I just don't want it to be a thing anymore.
Like Elsa, the Snow Queen, I just want to let it go and move on with the next chapter of our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment