My little genius

Obviously there has been more than pregnancy going on in my small corner of the world. Little Taters has come on the leaps and bounds with his talking in the past few weeks. 

To quickly recap he didn’t say a single word until two months before his 3^rd birthday. We were referred for speech therapy and that provided the breakthrough he needed. 

It's now 5 months later and he never stops talking. 

I’ve lost count of how many words he has because he’ll try and say just about anything, and he’s also very capable of putting together sentences too. He absolutely delights in talking now and isn’t shy about talking to anyone. I don’t know whether he talks at the same level as other three years olds, I’m not qualified to judge that, but his progress has been utterly amazing.

The floodgates opened shortly after our last meeting with his specialist speech therapist and he’s gone from strength to strength since then. Unfortunately though I haven't had the chance to update her since on his progress, we didn't see her again until last week when we met her and his new nursery to discuss any help he may need once he starts there next week, a meeting set up by the speech therapist after the last time we saw her. Back then he only had 70 words and could barely put two words together and I was worried about how he'd cope at nursery.

I thought we might get a little time with her before the meeting to bring her up to date, just to get us on the same page. But it didn't work that way and well, it was all a bit awkward to be honest.

Unfortunately Taters had to come along as his usual babysitter was at a funeral, and as I was trying to entertain a three year old who really didn’t want to sit quietly and play with his toys in an office, I didn’t have as much input into the meeting as I’d liked. Far from it, I barely managed to get a word in. 

But I did hear the speech therapist explaining to the head teacher how Taters had been the first time she met him (we'd had a rough night and he wanted nothing to do with her), how he didn’t like strangers or new situations and how we didn’t yet know the full extent of his understanding, as if there is something wrong with him, but we're not yet clear how serious it is. 

I honestly didn’t recognise my little boy in the description at all.  Her knowledge of him was so out of date.

When we last saw her she put him on a waiting list for extra therapy with any issues that could be above and beyond his speech problems, i.e. learning difficulties, behavioural problems, things that could underlie the speech problems. She was holding off assessing him for these things until she knew him better, but since the waiting list was so long and he was due to start nursery soon, she decided we would put him on the waiting list now, then if he did prove to need extra help in those areas, we wouldn’t be waiting as long for the help to kick in. I could see the logic in that.

But in the meeting with the nursery she talked of this help as if it was a certainty he needed it and that it would be happening. Which is not my understanding of the situation.

If she could only spend half an hour with him now, she might not be so sure he needs it. Yes he used to be difficult in new situations and didn’t take to strangers at all, but the transformation in him recently has been amazing, his confidence has really grown alongside his ability to talk. I'm far less worried now than I was back then. 

She did point out to the nursery that she hadn’t seen him in a while and hadn't yet carried out an assessment, but still, the picture she was painting of Taters to the nursery just isn’t him. 

I did manage to get a few points in about how much he’s changed and how his behaviour is now much less of a concern to me, but I didn’t come away feeling as though I’d stopped the ball rolling, more as though I’d come across as a mother in denial.  

It now feels a bit like he’s been labelled special needs and all these processes are being put into place based on that, but I'm not sure it's even necessary anymore and I don’t want him stuck with a label that isn’t correct and drags him down. 

I’m not panicking yet, because once he’s in nursery I’m quite confident that they will get to know him properly and I will take their advice on whether or not they think any extra help is needed or not, and with their back up I can either take that extra help or withdraw it. I don’t yet know the head teacher well, but I did get the impression she was a little skeptical about what the speech therapist was telling her, after all, she was hearing about a child with severe speech delay who couldn’t handle new environments or unusual situations. And there he was sitting on my knee chatting away quite happily. 

I’m probably worrying about nothing aren’t I?

I’m sure the truth will out in the end and when the speech therapist does see him again, hopefully we can set the record straight and she might see him in a different light.

It’s just annoying that I didn’t get the chance to nip it in the bud yesterday. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.  But I will stick my neck out now and say that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Taters, I really don’t. I think he’s a quirky individual and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone someday tries to label that under some condition or other, but then they’d better label me as it too, and my husband, because he has picked up strange traits from both of us. (Sorry Taters).