Speech Therapy (3/30/06)

Ryann will begin speech therapy on Thursday afternoon of next week. I am looking forward to it and I hope she picks up on things quickly. I'm sooooo sick of grunting and whining as a means of communication (although I fear that I am ultimately responsible for her speech issues... A mother's guilt never ends).

She now says:
Mama
Dada
Georgia
Nona (nora)
Duck (very emphatically I might add)
Milk
Papa (although we're not quite sure what she means by this word - I think it is a very generalized term for anything and everything she wants to communicate because she says it often while she is pointing at many different things)
Up
Book
Tuck (stuck)
Yes
No
Yes Mama

She also signs:
Please
Thank You
Help
All Done
More

I was hesitant to teach her more signs because I have heard that early sign language deters children from speaking. I thought I was experiencing this with Ryann because she won't try to say the words that she can sign. However, I spoke with the speech therapist about this and she said that all recent studies indicate that sign language does NOT deter speech development and that it is a wonderful way to help Ryann communicate. So I will try to teach her some more signs... Eager to see how the speech therapist works with her and how it all works.