JB had a 2 hour evaluation yesterday. I felt like after a year of speech therapy and not much progress, we needed to re-evaluate. He met with 2 therapists that conducted all kinds of tests. They think they have a diagnosis. Yay!!! Dysarthria, which is a neuromuscular impairment. That is, the speech mechanism (larynx, lips, tongue, palate and jaw) may be paralysed, weak or poorly co-ordinated. (Often times this can be seen in older adults with a brain injury, stroke, Parkinsons, etc) A few other things they noticed that are symptoms is poor breathing control and weakness (on his left side). All of it should come, but we will be ramping up the therapies and adding a few more to the list. They are still concerned about his hearing and wants another test to see if we can get better cooperation from him (the last test was one day at 3pm and he had not napped, so he zoned a bit). They also noticed that he was not properly tracking objects with his eyes. We will get that checked out by an opthomalogist in the next couple of weeks. Really important to start working on that before he gets to school age and learning how to read. They noticed how his abdomen was a little distended (swollen) and attributed that to all the air he is swallowing because he is a huge mouth breather. They were able to feel some of his muscles (his trapazoid). Since they were very tight, that is one of the indicators that he is not using proper breath control and without breath control, you can't form words or sentences. While we were there, he took a couple of swallows of his water and when he was done, he was gasping loudly for air. They were like, clear indicator of breath control, and I just laughed and told them whenever he had done that, I looked at him and said 'wow, you were thirsty.'
It is just amazing while talking with them how God created the body and a deficit in one area really affects other areas. So, I am going with Dysarthria and we will see where we are in 6 months or so. Just glad to be able to hang my hat on something right now. They said that he is a very frustrated little boy that is trying very hard to get words out and just not able to. Makes me use a little more patience with him, knowing that he is truly trying but just neurologically unable to do the tasks at hand. (They are not sure how the never damage occurred and they told me I could run further tests, but may or may not get answers.)