Speech, play and therapy

Owen doesn't receive much formal therapy, he is currently off the OT list until preschool, he is off the PT list since he began walking, so all that is left is ST and with her current workload she has been seeing him for 1 hour every 3 months, she usually gives us some homework to do, at the moment she is introducing Owen to the Nuffield dyspraxia cards.

He has obvious dyspraxic tendencies e.g. We hear him say a new word or sound once and then never hear it again, or he might repeat a sound or word copying us a few turns but then he stops and can't restart again, he will have a sound down perfect and then for some reason change it -he went from being able to say an "s"sound for weeks then a few days ago he couldnt say it at all instead he would say "ee" (both sounds have the same mouth shape but tounge in diff positions and finally he still coughs when he drinks water, not every time but most, it's not a choking cough more a clearing of the throat kind of sound. but on the positive he is making huge progress with his speech after his ear tubes went in and last week he had a hearing test which for the first time in his life he PASSED! Which just confirms what I already knew - his hearing has been shithouse!

I used to stress so much about how much therapy other kids have especially when I have read some kids can have like hours of therapy a week.I know that what Owen formally gets isn't enough, so I do do some at home, like those Nuffield cards their just salt and peppered through our week, after lunch one day, sitting on the toilet another day (oh he finally graduated to the big loo over that icky potty -hooray). But the only thing he does daily is the Special Words app now that we have the iPad, I have added a bunch of personalized images and cards to the program this week and he loves it.

So I console myself that just being a kid life is full of "therapy" moments, if you take the time to make them and they don't have to be sit down formal sessions, when we were out in the backyard a few days ago and noticed that our garden had sprung bunches of thistles, Owen was so delighted (and delightful) as he went from thistle to thistle, some needed a gentle puff of air and others need huffing and puffing to get those little parachutes with their seed to float off the stem. Watching him do this I realised that what he was doing was great for breath control and lip puckering,(tick ST off the list for the day -yahoo). P.s sorry all these paragraphs have all run together making it hard to read for some reason blogger won't accept my spaces between?