Ears and Speech

This morning, Aubrey had an appointment with the ENT. We saw her for the first time in July and then she wanted to see Aubrey every 4 months for maintenance, so we saw her in November. They did a hearing test at that time that showed mild loss and she has super small ears and lots of wax, so they wanted to see her in 3 months. So there we were this morning, getting her ears cleaned out and checked. They look PERFECT! Not as much wax as last time, NO fluid and they just look great. She was shocked at how good they looked. I did ask about the speech delays though. They had not originally planned a hearing test, but decided to do one anyway. She did much better this time.

Aubrey's test still shows mild hearing loss, but it is a wait and see game. She is still very young, so the test is not 100% accurate and they will keep a close eye on her and let the speech teacher take it from hear. They were kind enough to print her results for me to take with and give to ourECI teacher for reference.

Things went so well because Miss Ella was on a "Starwars" playdate with Andrew:) (Can you tell that these people only have "boy" toys and my little girls don't know about all this "cool" stuff)

I was on the ball and actually scheduled a speech session for this afternoon! Aubrey was able to show off her new skills. It never occurred to us that we should give Aubrey a fork, but we did the other day and we were totally blown away! Pizza for lunch, bite size of course.

I think I can get it...

This is kind of tough, Mom...

GOT IT...And in the mouth!!!

For her second skill, Aubrey showed off her ability to not only drink from a straw cup, but she grabbed the cup herself from the table, drank, and then gently put it back!

She has such GREAT table manners!

Since Aubrey has met her goals, self feeding and drinking from a straw, we talked about new goals and I spend a lot of time talking about language. Aubrey doesn't say anything yet. She has "B" and "D" sounds and is starting on some "M" and "N" and the "A". She says "dadadada", but doesn't use it for Daddy. Since we see her twice a month, we decided that for now, we would focus one session on eating. This will keep her on task and make sure she is progressing. The other session will be more language focused, but may still happen at meals (yet to be decided).

I mentioned that while she has quite a few signs that she CAN use, she doesn't use the consistently or very often. She does a lot of screaming and yelling these days. Melissa suggested that we use some picture cards (hand made) of her favorite foods and toys and such that we could use to help her communicate until she is using more signs consistently or using actual words. That would ease some of her frustrations. I am looking forward to seeing how this works. And maybe it is time to see speech more often these days...sigh...

I am so grateful that they come to the house at least and it isn't one more appointment to drive to or entertain Ella at. Sometimes, they even come before Ella wakes up and that is so nice:)