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When Jo was born, we didn’t know what to expect, not because he was going to have a type of disability later on in his life, but because he was such an exceptional child. He was such a charismatic baby, always laughing and making the room light up with something so simple, his smile. As he developed more, we realized that he was developing with his speech as a child his age would be developing.

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You see, when Jo was three months, he was beginning to react to voices, and loud sounds. As well as making coos and sounds. He was developing well at his beginning months. Once he hit his 8-month mark, I began to see some delays. The words, that he was speaking, weren’t clear nor can say it was a word. His attention span was minimizing, although an 8-month attention span isn’t much, but he wasn’t meeting the “requirement.” Another observation that I had made was, not responding to his name, at this point I had realized something was “wrong.”

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I say, “wrong” because nothing was wrong with my child, I just wasn’t educated with what was happening so I had immediately thought something was wrong with him.

I didn’t want to have any type of negative feeling towards my child, so I began to do my research on why his speech wasn’t developing the same as other children at his age would. Where I had begun was through this website, https://familydoctor.org/condition/speech-and-language-delay/, which helped me see how speech delays occur. As well as began getting resources on what we as parents can do to help him. The first step that I had to take was, to the doctors where they would give me an idea of his speech and the developmental delay Jo had.

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Once the first action was taken, I began to look for resources for speech delay. The first one I had seen was from the doctor itself, of getting him evaluated for autism as well or anything else that can cause his speech delay. What was told to us that might have caused the delay was, Psychosocial deprivation, which was not much interaction with adults. In which this website https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/speech-and-languagehelped me understand the milestones and how exactly speech and language is developed. I had believed this was also an effect. Due to me working a full-time job as well as Jo’s father working full-time and the weekends, it was going to happen. As a parent, knowing that I could’ve prevented it, hurt. But, instead of thinking negative again, I decided to begin the process of making Jo speak.

Working at a daycare/preschool had its perks. One of them being able to know some resources for children with a speech delay which Jo had.

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Some resources were, the regional center. The regional center was a center where they were able to evaluated for free for autism and speech delay where if they did have the disability, they were going to getting speech therapy. Another advantage with the regional center was that it was free. My local regional center was found in this website, https://www.nlacrc.org. But this was only available for children below three years old. So once the child turned three, they wouldn’t qualify for this program. That is when the Los Angeles United School District, LAUSD, takes action. There are schools where they offer the same services that will follow the child all throughout their education until they graduate high school, they even help with potty training.

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Knowing these couple of resources, I took action and had put him through the regional center since Jo was 18 months when the process was complete. He began his speech therapies at home for an hour twice a week, until Jo was three. Another resource that I had found very helpful was, this website https://allaboutyoungchildren.org/english/where they give information on a child’s early development from birth to 5 years old. This website also gave me strategies on how I can help Jo with all his developments not just with his speed development.

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After much resources, I developed some ideas that would help Jo once he went to school and how his teachers will be able to help. One simple idea that I gave was baby sign language, it’s very simple signs, more like gestures that will help the communication between Jo and his teachers. Another idea that was found was for the teacher to use this website, https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/activities-to-Encourage-speech-and-Language-Development/, as a guide on how they can help Jo communicate better with his teachers. Although these resources aren’t much, they will help the development for Jo in the long run.

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As a parent of an exceptional child, I didn’t believe it would be full of emotions. At first it was very difficult grasping the idea that he had a speech delay, but once I grasped it, it was all success after that point. Every word, mumble, and sign that Jo did was so eventful and praised Jo for every achievement that he did. Although his development was different compared to other children at his age when I found out he had a delay was enormous. I saw this like explained before, he wasn’t responsive to his name nor was making murmurs a child at 8 months should be doing and he wasn’t. That was when I took him to his doctors which were at Kaiser hospital, and then took him through the regional center where they did another evaluation had gave the speech therapy he needed. Once he got into the program, slowly but surely, I saw progress and made sure to praise Jo for his achievements.