Bella's speech has taken off these past few weeks. Every day I'm hearing new words and learning to understand more and more of what's coming out of that sweet mouth. Although I'm very proud of her ability to communicate [mostly] effectively with us, her parents, she does have a set back to her speech:
She only uses 5 consonants - the last two, mainly:
H - at the beginning of words
G - only at the beginning of a word
N - only at the beginning of a word
M - at the beginning and end of most words
K - at the beginning and end of most words
She is involved in speech therapy and we've been working with her much on making other sounds and trying to train her lip muscles to do certain things (i.e. blowing bubbles, blowing out, spitting, kissing, etc.), but haven't seen much progress.
I'm not too concerned, seeing as she is only 19-months and seeing how much improvement in her speech/communication I've seen just in the last month or so. It does create somewhat of a communication barrier, though, as many, MANY words sound the same. Here is an example:
Moke = milk
Mike = bike
Mahk = walk
Mook = book
Mow = Meow (her kitty)
Kiiiiii = climb
KaEe = Daddy
Kock = park
Kuck = truck
Ka = car
Kuuu = juice
I often find myself either: (a) very proud if I can decipher, using situational awareness and context, what she wants/needs/is saying; or (b) confused at how other people (like her father) can't understand what she's saying! Duh!!
In other news, she's been calling Travis and me "KaEe-Ko" and "Mama-Mo" (respectively) the past 4-5 days. It's cracking us up. Here's a little bit of me catching it on tape...
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P.S. - Thanks to Caitlin James for all the awesome park photo shoot! Love them...
9 comments:
Awww....Such a cutie!! :)She makes me smile!
I'm not sure what she's saying either, but it sure is cute! I love reading your blog, by the by. You're a kick!
Aria starts talking to the computer and saying hi enthusiasticly every time she sees a video because she thinks its skype. She sure misses bella.
Liv
Love it, Jenny!! It's a challenge when they first begin to speak so, so cute and precious. I love it that you got it on video because some phases are short lived. Andrew has most of our names down, but he insists on calling himself "me" even though we only call him Andrew :)
Hey Jenny! I absolutely love reading your blog. Your little Bella is such a sweetheart!! I was especially excited to read this post as I am just finishing up my graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology and completed a practicum placement at the U of M Cleft Palate Clinic. How's speech therapy going for Bella?
I totally agree -- it's like learning a new language when you try to communicate with them! I love her sweet voice though, she's so adorable! :)
Erin, thanks for reading! Speech Therapy is going well. We've only met with our therapist three times. I guess I was expecting to see faster results, but still, just developing age-wise is bringing lots of development, but Trav and I both are seeing where her clefting and lack of upper lip for the first 5 months of her life really is affecting her now. She is very determined, though, and so I am hopeful. We will be meeting with our cleft team at the Children's Hospital in a month, so I'm curious as to what they'll have to say!
I think it's a struggle for most parents raising little ones. As they start to speak their first words, moms understand them (sometimes) but other people can only catch some of what they say. It's rare that kids articulate well from day one, but I understand your extra concerns with Bella's history. Speech therapy can be a funny thing. I've noticed with some of my kiddos that we'll work and work and see little progress and then all of a sudden they'll "get it" and take off. It's great that you're working with her so much, and I'm sure she'll do fantastic!! Keep in mind there are a lot of 2 year olds that are just saying their first words.
PS: Using all of those K sounds is called backing and it's a pretty common thing for kids to do. Some grow out of it on their own, but others need some help to get it all straightened out. I have kindergartners come to school working on using k instead of d - like Bella does for "daddy". I'm guessing for her it has to do with her clefting. (Sorry if your speech therapist already explained all of that to you.) I'm sure she'll do great. She's such a doll!
So precious!!! :o)
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