Emily and speech

Emily had her first speech session on Thursday. It went well, and the therapist is really pleased (and surprised!) at how well Emily can do several of her sounds and how motivated she is to work. From what the therapist said, at this point they mainly do drill work to help her solidify the action of making a sound--i.e., pursing the lips to make the "w" sound.

Emily worked on "p", "b", "w", and "m". We're supposed to be focusing on encouraging her "m" and "w" words this week.

We're still waiting to hear back from the plastic surgeon as to his current final decision for her palate. I say current final decision because he may decide he wants to wait until she is a little bigger and then consider surgery, so we may do something temporary to block her palate hole until she is older. The most likely option is an obturator, which is a retainer-type thing which will cover the hole in her mouth. It still won't give her the opportunity for normal speech however, as there are some sounds that require the soft palate to move and the obturator would not be able to do that. But it would help with much of her speech in preventing the loss of air flow through her nose. So we'll see what he thinks is best and take it from there.