Trenton recently had his 2 year well-child visit and it went great. He is a very healthy 2 year old, however the doctor and myself both have a slight concern. Trenton is very well advanced in his motor skills, but seems to be falling a bit behind the curve with his speech. I mean this child can already operate all the elecronics in our home (turn on dvd players..including starting the movie, play computer games, turn on and operate my iPhone), he is very interested in puzzles and has no trouble putting them together, and he just understands and does things that children his age normally don't. We think that his brain has been focusing so much on the motor skills that his language has fallen a bit behind.
We do not think he has a "real" problem with speech, because he understands everything we say and more. However, we just think he is having a problem getting everything out that he wants, and knows how, to say. Obviously every child is different and they grow at different rates, but we just want to make sure that he starts articulating things correctly now so that he does not have a real problem as he gets older. I was a bit concerned when the doctor first recommended speech therapy until he encouraged me that it has nothing to do with a child's IQ (in most cases), because Trenton is obviously very bright. So, I came home and did some research and discovered that a lot of very smart individuals had some troubles with speech and it seems their brains developed the same way. The brain focused so much on the mechanics of everything around them that the speech suffered, but when they could speak they spoke in full sentences. I am by no means saying our child is going to be a genius, or prodigy, but it is very encouraging to know that this is just a minor set back for a very bright future for Trenton.
When something like this happens you tend to focus on the things that you could have done to prevent it. Could I have done anything to prevent something like this from happening? No, probably not, and for me that is tough. I read to him every night, we sit and recite his ABC's, colors, and 123's every night, and we hold "conversations" with him at the dinner table. I talk to him all day long, but he just babbles, and every now and then spits out a word or two. We know there are words in there, they just need a little bit of help getting out!
