Speech therapist said we're starting all the way from the bottom :o(

Ben was diagnosed about a month ago with Apraxia os speech. He's been going to PROMPT therapy for 5 weeks now, twice/week an hour each time. They're finally getting deep into the therapy and Ben has been doing really really well. He's added about 18 "words", a lot of them are not pronounced clearly of course, and he still drops a lot of the ending sounds but the words are forming and he's trying really hard to communicate verbally. So proud of him!!

Today after his therapy session I was talking to his therapist and asked her outright if he was severely apraxic, she said as it stands today she would say he is, but he's only been in therapy 5 weeks, and she said in 6 months he might be moderately apraxic and she thinks he will get better with time and some serious effort on our part. Her words were, "We're starting all the way from the bottom and building up. We have a lot of work to do". Since Ben has such poor control of his jaw (he has low muscle tone too) she also gave me lots of exercises to do with him at home. 

It was sad to hear that he was considered severely apraxic, but as sad as it was to hear that, I was so happy to see that he was actually receiving the right kind of therapy and had such a dedicated and excellent therapist there to support him. I have to say it made me feel so proud as a parent to have pushed so hard to get him diagnosed and start receiving the right kind of therapy. I told the therapist that I wanted to up his therapy to three times a week starting April. She said she's be fine with that and hopefully we would start to see even more progress then. 

Just thinking about the amount of money we're going to have to pay when insurance runs out....how in the heck do insurance companies think that 40 sessions a year are enough for a severely apraxic child??? Makes me so angry. Anyway, money be damned, early intervention and treatment is vitally important, and I will gladly spend all our savings getting Ben all the help he needs. 

Just wanted to share! Hope everybody else is having a great day.