I dont think I've ever actually blogged about this

I think I've tried a couple of times but it never really worked because of all the emotions behind it.

But I'm sure its been picked up on through my other posts and now that I did update the sidebar not too long ago.

Hunter is my starting to talk but still quiet kid because he has something called Childhood Apraxia of Speech (also called just apraxia). For those of you who don't know what this is it is basically a neuro muscular thing where his brain has problems communicating with his vocal muscles thus limiting his speech. He started speech therapy last July and at the time only had like 5 words that he could say besides his many sounds for animals and vehicles. A year later he is still severe but does communicate alot better. He has alot more words and is even using them in 2-3 word combos. All the words he does use are all one syllable besides repeating ones like papa. He did imitate yellow and purple before but being more difficult words he didn't keep them which is a common apraxic thing to do. He now calls yellow things orange because that's alot easier to say then yellow but that's a big improvement over everything being blue as it was last year.

He really only uses a couple of names and they are shortened versions such as when he talks about Ethan it comes out more like En which makes Ethan call him H sometimes. And his best friend from school last year was Bren shortened version of Brendan. He doesn't refer to himself by a name yet but rather air writes the letter H and says A because he hasn't mastered that ch sound yet.

He does have an Alternative Augmentative Communication device (AAC) which we got a couple of months ago but I have been about working with him using it. We didn't try much with signing because I wasn't sure of how to work with 2 babies on it when they were little. His first SLP did a little with it but trying to use more then one or two signs when copying her just lost him and it was hard for him to pick up new signs after he got more and help and thank you down. His OT figured that it could be his apraxia affected his hands as well which made it hard to communicate that way.

On the topic of OT he also has some sensory processing disorder (SPD) related things that might be tied in with his apraxia. He has some touch things as well as motor planning and postural control issues. He has gotten better in somewhat as far as getting his hands dirty and touching things. He will put his hands in the tub of beans at OT but wont touch the shaving cream. he actually jumped out of his chair the last time she was playing with him with the shaving cream when she patted the table and some flew towards him. For some reason he also has an aversion to pudding but will eat applesauce and yogurt. He is getting better about eating vegetables and will even eat a few different green things now.