Our dear sweet little Cambri blabbers A LOT. By now, we thought we'd be able to understand her more, but she has clearly struggled to form words and certain sounds. She has mostly struggled with consonants. We've tried to work with her to practice different sounds and whatnot, but she loses interest so quickly or just flat out refuses.
At her 18-month appointment her pediatrician still wasn't too concerned yet, but said if she's still not talking or developed a vocab by her 2-year appointment, then we'd need to explore speech therapy or other professional help.
So, there has been a little added anxiety, which, I know some of you have gone through with your own kids. When Cambri tells us what she wants or something, basically all we hear is noise, but have a really hard time understanding what she's saying. Especially since it's all vowels, she'll make what sounds like the same sound for multiple things. So we have kind of figured out by now when she's trying to say water or snack or whatever.
It's frustrating for both us and her to not understand what she is saying and asking her to repeat herself multiple times until we figure it out.
About a month or so ago, I asked Hadley if she wanted to say the prayer at dinner. When she said no, instead of Emily or myself saying it, we asked Cambri if she wanted to. She said yes. Then of course Hadley said she wanted to say it. Cambri then repeated a simple prayer for the first time.
This went on for a couple nights, then we realized the only time we can get her to repeat words and sounds is when repeating the prayer at dinner or bedtime. So, we've used that as a way to get her to practice more. Every time at dinner or bedtime, when she knows we are about to say a prayer, she will put both hands on her chest and say "me" as a way to indicate she wants to say the prayer.
Over the last month, her speech has improved significantly. Yeah, it's still hard to understand her and she still struggles with consonants, but it's been obvious to see the improvements she's making in a relatively short amount of time. Can't help but feel like there is some divine influence going on.
There is a lot of power in prayer, especially a child's prayer.
That was beautiful! Good job Cambri! I also loved how Hadley wanted to say the prayer too so started her own. You two are doing a great job.
ReplyDelete