In January of last year, our two-year-old grandson, Drew, was diagnosed with a severe phonological disorder. His speech was virtually unintelligible. Over the past year, Drew and his Mommy, our daughter Melaina, have worked very hard and Drew has had some speech therapy. The results have been astounding! By summertime, he had been upgraded from “severe” to “moderate” and at his latest speech assessment in late January, he was deemed to be within the normal range of speech development for a child of his age! Wow! What a difference a year can make!

Melaina delights in sharing some of Drew’s cutest conversations. Here’s a recent one she overheard between him and his 21-month-old sister as they headed downstairs to their bedroom:

Best Friends

Drew: Come on, Jami. We play soccer ours room.
Jami: Ok!
Drew: We best friends! Right, Jami?
Jami: Uh huh!

Doesn’t that just bless your heart? Here’s another one that tickled my funny bone:

Mommy: Drew, did you colour on your sister?
Drew: Yes.
Mommy: Why?!
Drew: Because! Her get in way of paper I colouring!

And here’s one more from yesterday:

Drew: Mommy, we go buy some new toys?
Mommy: No, we’re not going to buy new toys today.
Drew: Yes! Mine’s are old and strange!

While it warms our heart to be able to carry on a conversation with Drew and life is so much easier for him now that he can make his thoughts and feelings known, his challenges are not over yet. He still struggles with the sounds that are typically difficult for three-year-olds but, unlike his peers, these mispronunciations won’t simply correct themselves over time. Melaina and Aaron will have to continue working with him, carefully teaching him how to make each sound correctly.

They’ve also been warned that children with speech delays like Drew’s typically have difficulty learning to read. That was difficult news to digest for parents who are avid readers but Melaina isn’t one to take something like that lying down. In fact, she was already doing things that would give him a head start toward learning to read before she was even given this news; taking the children to an early literacy program at their local library and reading to them daily. She’d also started teaching Drew to recognize and print the capital letters. Now, three months short of his fourth birthday, he knows all the upper and lower case letters and is beginning to learn the sounds that each one makes. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s reading before he goes to school!

Ta da!

Photos by Melaina Graham