Speech Therapy

HOW could I have forgotten to blog about this?!?! I have shared this with some of you, but a lot of people have no idea about it! The day before Riley's birthday we had a birthday party for him. Jeff and I got him a fire truck house for his present. Riley would run around saying "Fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fire truck house!" At first we thought it was really funny and cute. Then we thought he was trying to say fire fighter truck house. Then we realized he was stuttering. How you ask? Well he started to do it with EVERYTHING! He would say things like "I want to play play play play play play play ball." Or " Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby Addie." Then he started to say things quieter, but still stutter. Then one day I asked him to say fire truck and he said "Fiiiiiiire, Fiiiiiiiire, Fiiiiiiire" then hit his fist to the side of his leg and said, "I can't do it!" It broke.my.heart! I had researched stuttering a little bit and found out it is kind of normal, especially in boys. The thing that wasn't normal was to have it progress so quickly and have him get upset about it. The other thing I worried about was how little Jeff could understand. I mean he probably only understands about 10% of what Riley is actually saying. I understand him like 95% of the time, but there are times where I don't have any idea what he is saying either. People around us are always looking to me for translation when he is talking to them. I mentioned it to my friend Courtney and she told me about this program Davis county offers. I called them up and they asked me a few questions about what was going on. Then she felt like it was definitely something to look into so she had me fill out this little survey. She told me it would go before a board of people and they would decide whether or not he needed to be tested. She also told me it would take about 2-3 weeks to find out. Well, 4 DAYS later I got a call that he was eligible for testing. I was kind of surprised they called so quickly, but was happy to get him in! I took him for testing on April 29. It was a group setting and they tested lots of areas including, vision, hearing, fine and gross motor skills, language, etc. After the testing they pull you into another room to discuss the findings, both good and bad. Well, Riley did well in most areas, but he FAILED the language part :( SAD, huh?! So now we have to go have 1-on-1 testing with a speech therapist. I'm still waiting for them to call to set it up. Oh ya, he also didn't pass the self help either. I'm not quite sure HOW they test that because it's not like they had him take his clothes off and then put them back on, or have him brush his teeth, or wash his hands. So I dunno? I guess we will have further testing on that as well. Either way, I would rather have things taken care of when he is young, rather than putting it off and having him get made fun of in school and stuff.