After a WONDERFUL six month period with NO doctor’s visits, we once again headed down to St. Paul to see Olivia’s cleft surgeon. There is the possibility that she will need a 2nd palate surgery to correct some structural issues with her palate that may be affecting her speech.
She is not doing much talking yet but she sure can belt out some good sounds! Sometimes I think she’s actually just talking in another language, German or Japanese maybe? Oddly, it doesn’t sound at all Chinese!
The surgeon determined that she is not speaking enough yet to make a decision about a 2nd surgery and so she will be starting weekly speech therapy with the cleft team through Gillette next week. The speech therapist who did who her initial speech evaluation wrote, “Olivia has a delay in her expressive language skills and her speech production skills. At this time, her resonance has a hypernasal quality and nasal emissions were heard during attempts to imitate single words” (this hypernasal quality is something not uncommon for children with cleft palate and oftentimes is a red flag for additional palate surgery).
The speech therapist also recommended we initiate speech therapy through the school district at this time (in addition to the care she’ll receive at Gillette). So we’ve scheduled an initial visit with the school system and they will be sending out a speech pathologist, the school nurse and an early intervention specialist right after Labor Day. In addition to evaluating Olivia’s speech needs, they’ll do a development evaluation on her.
It all seems a wee bit overwhelming, but at the same time I’m happy that this part of our “cleft journey” has begun! I’m so looking forward to hearing Olivia begin to enunciate words. Even though she can’t talk much yet, she sure can communicate. I often get the “I’m bored” look or the “I’m not going to listen to you” look. And it’s amazing how well she can say “NO!”
In 6 months, we’ll once again return to her surgeon and determine next steps at that time.
It's hard to believe summer is quickly drawing to a close. It's been so much fun to watch Olivia try new things, make new friends and explore all that is wonderful about MN in the summer!
Blessings to you!
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