Speech Eval

So, we went for the speech evaluation today. Bottom line is that Brian will be starting speech therapy once a week. It may be a month from now-with the way lovely insurance companies like to take their time-but it's happening!

The evaluator made me feel really good in all decisions that we have made up to this point. She said he seems to be able to say all sounds and his intonation is great. In other words, she does not think his speech issue is related to his hearing loss. Which translates into-we did not make a bad decision by not aiding him. Whew.

She also said I did the right thing by getting a 2nd opinion even though we have been denied by First Steps 3 times. Whew.

The way she summed up his issue is this. A lot of what he says is scripted, or repetitive. He says things he has heard said and does not often speak spontaneously. This is the perfect summation of what I had been trying explain to First Steps!

She thinks one on one therapy will really help this issue. She also said that he might be put in group therapy if the one on one starts to show results. I am fine with one on one, but group might be fun too!

The bad news for today though is that we found out his audiologist Shana is leaving. This will be our second audiologist that we have lost. So sad. We think we will choose a new one in Kentucky so that we won't have to drive to main anymore. If we have to change, we may as well get some benefit from it! We can't exactly fly to New York once a year to get a hearing test (New York is where Shana is heading)! Although we might consider it...she's pretty great!