Speech Therapy here we come

I was very impressed with the appt for J this morning. They observed him in several different settings and environments. At one point they even watched him and another little boy interact. It was odd seeing about 8 adults standing around watching the boys play.
His coordination and fine motor skills are great. He is also a great communicator just not with words. I don't recall all the technical lingo but basically he does have issues going on. They determined that by several different factors.
He often holds his mouth open and his tongue out. He drools alot. He retracts his tongue quite a bit. He stuffs his face with food. His receptive language age is 15-18 months and his expressive language is 6-9 months. Bottom line is, he has low muscle tone in his mouth/jaw area and is orally aware. There were a couple of times they could tell he wanted to talk, but just could not get the words out.
Because of this evaluation, we qualify for services through some kind of county program. Someone will come out next week to do a home study and then let us know our options for speech therapists. They said an occupational therapist would work too, but using a speech therapist he will also get additional help with his language. They were pretty optimistic that once he realizes what his mouth can do and increases the muscle tone that he will begin to talk.
They also strongly recommended getting him tested for food allergies. They said his tonsils are not huge but definitely enlarged and that can affect how the tongue lays. Given B's allergies, it is very possible that J has them too. So, have another new doc to try out for the allergy testing (most docs don't like to do allergy testing on kids this young).
I am just thankful that it is nothing serious that cannot be overcome.
It was interesting when we were talking about the food allergies and how they can affect the body. The speech therapist told me of a child who was diagnosed as autistic. They did allergy testing on him and he had an peanut allergy. As soon as they cut out peanuts, it was like night and day. He started talking, interacting, etc.
Heading out to play tennis in a bit and cards (Pinochle) later on tonight!