Posted in German with the Kinder

Three is my threshold for not being able to speak.  Before age three, fine.  Once you are three, though, I'd really like to be able to understand you!  So at the twins' three-year-old checkup last fall, the pediatrician and I discussed starting speech therapy.  She sent in the referral and I was contacted a little while later by a speech therapist who then came to our house to evaluate them.

It was very difficult to separate them for their evaluations, because they have never really been apart.  However, we managed well enough and soon the verdict was in: both twins were delayed at least a year in comprehension and over a year in expression.  They both had a handy word "mih-dow" which could mean anything they wanted it to. Our insurance approved them for therapy done in our home, two sessions a week.

Twins are commonly speech delayed, and of all kinds of twins, identical twin boys tend to be the most delayed.  They understand each other perfectly fine (I once watched them have a complete argument with resolution without any words at all!), so they really have no motivation to speak. 

Just before Christmas, we began therapy.  She came twice and then we took a two week break for Christmas and New Year's.  Then she came two more times and then got sick.  Through the rest of January, I heard from her once.  It was frustrating to me, because even with that tiny bit of therapy, I had seen improvement, and then through January, they regressed.  Mid-February, I got a call from the therapy place.  They said that they had not heard from the therapist and didn't know where she was.  Then they explained that when a therapist can't come for whatever reason, they don't stop therapy - they assign a temporary therapist.  "So would you like a new therapist?" they asked.  Of course!

A few days later I got a call from the new therapist, who works at the local elementary school.  She is absolutely wonderful and a much better therapist than the first one!  She actually plans out the sessions (aside from just what games she brings) and works with them for a full hour.  Meanwhile I have been able to actually clean up the kitchen or make dinner.  It is wonderful to have that break for an hour while another adult entertains them!

Both therapists noticed that Ryan is still, at 5 1/2, having trouble with some sounds.  The first therapist was including him in their sessions, but not really helping him.  This one had me fill out a sheet so that she could evaluate him separately, which she did yesterday.  She also is planning to come three times a week some weeks to make up the sessions they missed in January.

So all this is promising, but both therapists told me that they will most likely continue needing therapy up to and possibly including school age. I was feeling guilty about having spent a year speaking German to them, even though I knew that they were delayed before I started speaking only German to them.  And I've really been wanting to start with some German again, but I kept asking myself, "How can I do it when they are so delayed?"

Then all of a sudden I realized, "Hey, I've been speaking only English to them for seven months, and they aren't suddenly speaking in Shakespeare sonnets!  So they could be delayed and have one language, or they could be delayed and have two languages.  Which is better?  Obviously two!"

So there you go.  Speech therapy at home has the added benefit of making me clean up before she gets here!  Both therapists have also been very supportive of homeschooling as well.

I always thought that the movie Monsters, Inc. was unrealistic in that Boo is potty-trained but can't really speak.  Guess what? I now have two potty-trained, non-speaking children!