Beneficial Thinking

Mr. Potato Head by Playskool

Don't underestimate the power of learning through play. I bought Mr. Potato Head two weeks ago for my son, who has speech problems. Although he knew the body parts, he was only saying a few of them. Since we have started "playing" with Mr. Potato Head, he has started saying mouth, feet, arm, nose, ear, and eyes. It's amazing the new things kids can learn with new toys!

Fridge Phonics: Magnet Alphabet Set from LeapFrog

Every Thursday my son goes to speech therapy (we think he has Apraxia). This week the therapist had the Fridge Phonics: Magnet Alphabet Set in her office and Ben showed interest in it, so she gave it a shot. While he drew, the therapist would put in a letter (B, for example), the toy would play a little tune (such as, "every letter makes a sound, b says buh") and he'd actually say the sound, no teeth pulling necessary. He did SO well, our BEST therapy session yet! So I broke down and bought one for home today so that we could do some work at home. Hopefully he'll work with it at home too, I'll keep you posted. Of course we are still practicing all the words he's already saying, focusing on trying to improve the two-syllable words like bubble (we blow lots of bubbles) and balloon (The Yellow Balloon by Charlotte Dematons). But every new word he says, my heart does a little pitter-patter.

I can hardly believe that Ben's vocabulary is up to 50 words! He may not be able to say them all clearly yet, but just the fact that he says them consistently and that I can understand him is amazing. My little boy has tried so hard to get words out and for us to understand him that this milestone of 50 words is one to be celebrated. I know we have a long way to go, but I'm just going to pause and be grateful for where we are now.

My twenty-six-month-old son Benjamin went to speech therapy today for the second time. First, let me say, that I am so glad that we got into the therapist so quickly after his evaluation. I had heard that it could take months to get in because of the demand, but it only took about three weeks to get a weekly appointment time set up.

So we were at the appointment, and I'm not sure if I didn't hear her last week, but the therapist thinks Ben has Apraxia.


From what I've been reading on the internet, the prognosis looks good, but only after a lot of intervention. I am already full of questions that I want to ask at next week's session, but I'm torn because I don't want to take time away from Ben's therapy to have the therapist answer my questions. I guess I am in for a lot of internet time this week so that I can be armed with as much information as possible. But I still think I'll have a ton of questions...

•  Do we need to get him involved in an early childhood intervention program?  And if so, how do we do that and where would we go?
• Is speech therapy once a week enough?
• Is this something that could be "cured," or will he have to struggle all of his life.
• What steps should we take next?