Back in October I wrote about encouraging speech and language and how a teacher suggested I should encourage verbal communication by ignoring S. Her method didn’t really sit with me and I decided to wait it out. He’s a bright child and could comprehend everything I was saying to him, I knew he’d eventually speak, he just needed to do it in his own time.

In February this year he had his 2 year check and the health visitor suggested we see a speech and language therapist because he didn’t have as many words as he should have at 2 years old. I wasn’t too worried about his speech but it was when she mentioned his lack of speech could affect his behaviour if he got frustrated, that I decided to go along for the assessment. I could see he really wanted to communicate and would babble in his own language but there were a few times even I couldn’t understand him.

It’s ironic because in the 10 days prior to his assessment, he suddenly started picking up new words and in the 10 days post his assessment, it’s like he went to bed and woke up with a whole bunch of new words every day.

This morning we were counting coins and he can count 1-10 as well as lots of new words he was struggling with before. His favourite now being “nani” (maternal grandmother) and “money”.

It’s the most amazing feeling to see things click in to place with your child and now that he’s finally ready, the words are coming much more easily for him.