Brayden's Speech and Language Evaluation

Yesterday Brayden had one of his big appointments downtown. We have one big appointment left and he will complete the CI process. The speech and language eval was looonnnng. Basically, the more you know, the longer it takes so it was a good thing. It was cool to watch but did drag on a bit. She asked if he loves to read b/c he went above his age range. Yes, yes he does.

In many ways I feel overwhelmed with his hearing loss b/c I don't have that complex vocabulary for signing that he has in English. As it is, Bryce is picking up language through ASL but not at the rate most kids his age are able to. It all has to do with language rich environment. Unfortunately, my ASL and English are not equally yoked. I'm hoping to get there some day but it would be more useful now.

We have noticed articulation has taken a hit with hearing loss. Brayden doesn't speak as clearly and will actually "baby talk" on purpose. I think he's doing this more as a protection thing bc he knows there's changes and I think he's a little conscious about them. This is where my Mama heart hurts for him.

The Speech and Language administrator recognizes that he works hard making sense of his environment. He does take all the clues around him and compensates. While I wouldn't choose this for him, I'm so proud of him. He, like Bryce, is handling this life change with grace. Some day, I know he will reap major blessings because of it.