speech delays...

“He is an active child. Though he cannot communicate anything verbally, he follows commands and makes himself understood, but with continuous speech therapy, there is slight improvement. “

 

The above is an extract from our son’s report before we accepted his referral. We dwelled on it for some time as we were not sure if we would be able to handle it but after talking to the speech therapist in India who said there was a slight improvement we decided to accept him as our son. Why am I writing this post… two and a half months after picking him up he is a nonstop chatter box! It is true that in the first weeks he communicated with one word sentences but today oh my! Julian does not stop talking, he forms complete sentences uses past, present and future tenses and is so keen and eager to learn and repeat new words. Yes his pronunciation is sometimes a little off but my ears are already trained and I understand everything he says. I received some very nice advice from a good friend on how to deal with his speech delay and it seems to be working just fine. Yes it requires endless repetition and patience but the result is just astonishing. It just goes to show that some children lack that personal touch, they lack constant love and a family and when they finally get there, they thrive. I can’t believe we doubted over the speech issue however it is always advisable to have the information you get double checked by a doctor you trust. We had two friends look at the reports and both said the same: this boy is fine, he just lacks love and individual attention. I know that Julian was treated very well in the orphanage and they did love him but I guess it is still different from being part of a family.

I know many parents are still waiting for referrals, NOCS, court judgments, passports and it is all so agonizingly slow when it shouldn’t be. It is sad that children are waiting so long for their families to join them. The waiting is the hardest thing during the whole process.

By now Julian has met many people, he still has to learn a lot about social behavior but I’m not worried. He has a good heart, he’s happy and with time he will be ok. Things are not always easy, we still have the tantrums and disobedience albeit on a much smaller scale and 80% of the time things are absolutely great.

His attachment is going very well; I have to say we had expected things to be more difficult. In my mind I was prepared for the worst and in reality I got a great boy. We consider ourselves very lucky whilst at the same time knowing that we may still have difficult times ahead as Julian gets older. But for now we take it one day at the time and we enjoy every (well almost ;)) moment.