Communicating with our nonverbal toddler.

When our son turned two and still wasn't talking, we knew that something was definitely wrong. We talked to our pediatrician who said we could wait until he was 2 and a half to see if he was a late bloomer, but with everything else stacked against him, we decided to start speech therapy anyway. His speech was evaluated in January and it was significantly more delayed than I thought. Parts of his language were at a 6 month level, but most parts were around a 9 month old level.

Up until this point we were communicating by us guessing what he was trying to convey.  This resulted in many meltdowns. He eventually learned to point to things which helped tremendously, but still wasn't ideal. Now, I spend so much time with him that I usually know exactly what he wants, but I still occasionally get it wrong.  This also isn't ideal, because I can't be with him 24/7 and other people won't just know what he wants. 

In speech, they do work on saying actual words and sounds, but they also have been working on signs. "More" and "all done" are the main ones. He's signed more before, but just like him saying words, he'll sign once and never again. It's like everything is a jumbled mess and he's trying to get it out, but can't. Recently I started working with him to sign "please." This, to me, was one of the most important signs he could learn. For the last two days he has successfully signed "please" when wanting something. Most of the time he has to be prompted, but he has done it on his own. This is a huge accomplishment for us and you better believe he got two pouches in a row because he said please by himself!