Gage is almost three years old now, and we've worried about him for a long time. We were afraid he was either autistic or in some way impaired developmentally because he rarely communicated verbally and exhibited other minor compulsive behaviors. He always seemed to understand a lot of what was going on, he just often chose not to participate, especially verbally.
A big part of this scenario had to do with his older brother Owen being the complete opposite. Owen was an easy kid. He met all of his developmental markers early. As soon as he started talking, he seemed to pick up new words quickly. His vocabulary increased steadily. If we introduced flash cards or new books, he immediately took to them, learning even more new words. He was responsive. The doctors assured us he was no genius, but it made life with our first child seem rather breezy.
Gage has been a child of resistance. He's stubborn. Even now, he hates flash cards. He'll play the 'which body part am I pointing at' game, but don't you dare bring out those flash cards! In his defense, he did start speaking right about the usual time, but his vocabulary just didn't take off like Owen's had. Grunting and pointing were his usual forms of communicating. He kept things simple.
He didn't even bother to differentiate between Mama and Papa. There simply was no Papa. Mama meant parent apparently. However, I suspect he may have just been teasing me because he'd often smirk and giggle when I'd insist on being called Papa.
When he reached the age of two, the lack of new words really concerned us. He would also avoid interacting with most other children even though he was constantly doing normal kid things with his older brother. At the park, he tended to keep to himself. Even more disturbing, he'd act in obsessive compulsive ways about walking the sidewalks and perimeters of the play areas. He would often get frustrated when he weren't picking up on his boredom. Instead of using words, he'd often just start screaming at the top of his lungs, which is fun at church, the grocery store, or waiting in line the library.
We talked to our pediatrician about this multiple times. We were assured over and over again not to worry about it. "He'll talk when he's ready. Maybe he doesn't have anything to say. My brother didn't talk until he was seven years old and now he's a successful politician."
They did multiple hearing tests. They checked his tongue to make sure it wasn't tied. They even tried some simple tests to make sure he wasn't autistic. They kept coming back to the same conclusions: His older brother often talks for him, even when we don't realize it, and Gage is just extremely stubborn.
Like the thawing of Winter, in March Gage started to change. He wasn't drastically different. He just started using more words. We had a long standing appointment with a county funded speech evaluator in April, but our worries were waning. She confirmed that Gage was not really behind in cognition or ability, he had a few pronunciation problems, and he should surely have a larger vocabulary.In her opinion, he could use a little help on a few things, but if he showed signs of increased vocabulary in the next few months, she felt he'd be fine.
Of course, he has gone on to meet and beat those expectations. He started speech therapy in July. His therapist noticed a few stumbling blocks. Gage tends to drop the beginning sounds of words instead of the ending sounds - which is rare but not unheard of. This makes it harder for us to reinforce the idea that he's using words correctly, making it more likely that he'll just give up and grunt or point.
Overall, as July wrapped up, she was confident he was going to do just fine without further therapy. She said that he simply doesn't exhibit the usual signs that children with severe speech handicaps do. She said he simply seems to be very stubborn about whichever activity he's currently interested in. No surprises there.
We're not really worried anymore. He's still the same old Gage in a lot of ways. It's still scary taking him into grocery stores, but he interacts with us a lot more. That sly sense of humor is still there. He loves to joke, and he now tells us when he thinks we're being funny.
We're now getting three and four word sentences and a ton of singing. Last week, during the quiet prayer during our church service, he was singing the Blues Clues theme song and dancing in the pew. I had to grin. His vocabulary is growing steadily all of a sudden, and he mimics the way he should have been doing a year ago.
We're not sure what sparked the thaw. It started just before any form of therapy or evaluation. Considering every evaluation he went through suggested that he understands way more than he lets on, perhaps Gage just understood that we had taken a large step toward getting him the help we thought he needed. Perhaps he was just waiting for the right time to make us look somewhat foolish. I wouldn't put it past the kid that still only seems to call me Papa when he's afraid of something. Every other time, I'm still Mama as he smirks and giggles.
He's been a lot more difficult than Owen was. He's still stubborn as can be, but we love him intensely.
