February 2023
Liam went to speech therapy for a few months starting in September. Unfortunately, Liam was unable to sit and focus like the speech therapist wanted him to; as a result, speech therapy was not helping and we eventually took him out. We were frustrated and so was he. After doing some research, there was one finding we consistently read about - the importance of getting a child around children their own age. Since Liam’s siblings are much older than him, we decided to put him daycare. It was a tough adjustment for all of us. We had never been separated before. Thankfully, he came to love daycare. Once he got comfortable in this new environment though, the behavioral issues arose - mainly biting. Although we had been dealing with biting, hitting and pulling hair at home, we were even more worried when those behaviors transferred over to daycare. We knew Liam needed more help than what we were able to give him.
A friend recommended that we seek help from an early intervention program. After an evaluation with three different specialists, we learned a lot about Liam’s needs. Because the majority of Liam’s life - 18 out of 21 months - have been focused on him medically, he is developmentally behind. Liam doesn’t say much with intentionality. He currently says, “roo-roo” for dog, “bot-bot” for milk and last week was the first time he said “cheese” and smiled. According to the therapists, Liam has Mixed Receptive Expressive Language Delay as well as Global Development Delay. He is 21 months old, but behaving more like a 12 month old. To put this in perspective, Liam is doing things a one year old would do, but in a much stronger, faster manner. We are working with Liam on biting, hitting and pulling hair. He gets frustrated easily because he knows what he wants, but isn’t able to communicate it. As a result, we are dealing with more temper tantrums than your typical toddler - for those with a toddler know that this is already a lot.
It has been a process to get Liam started in the early intervention program, but our advisor finally found an occupational, behavioral and overall wellbeing therapist for Liam. We do not have an exact date Liam will begin sessions yet, but we are hoping it’s soon.
