Listen Up!

While we were in Sacramento at MIND one thing we got confirmation on and learned way more in-depth about is Link's speech delay.

Fragile X'ers have difficulty speaking for a variety of reasons:
~Their loose connective tissue can make it hard for them to move their mouths correctly to form sounds
~They can have a highly arched hard palette; also causing problems with sound formation
~The over excitability in their brains makes learning in general, very, very hard. Speech often takes a back seat

We learned that Link, at 22 months and 2 words, is very, very advanced. We were told to embrace the fact that this is considered "verbal" in the Fragile X world. We also learned that by age 3, we can expect him to have 10 words. And if he's lucky, he'll be mildly conversational by age 7. Speech development and anxiety are the two biggest factors in assisting young Fragile X'ers with keeping the IQ gap between themselves and typical children as narrow as possible.

Our boy has been getting speech therapy since 9 months of age. And about 3 months ago we incorporated some sign language. Out at MIND they stressed hitting speech hard and heavy. They said up the sign language. They said to use something called "prompting" to help him form sounds. And they also recommend medications. 4 of them.

Within a few days of being home, Lincoln's grandma Jeanne had a "Baby Signing Time" video in our mailbox and a little over a week ago we started the boy on one of his meds.

Today, while he was eating his snack he looked over at me and perfectly and precisely did the sign for "more".

Look out, people. The sweet Mr. Buddy is making his needs known. HALLELUJAH!