Something is definitely wrong...

The following is a timeline of what has happened in the past couple of weeks:

October 23
First Steps came out to do Nathan's evaluation. They were very impressed with his development and continually told us how intelligent he is. He passed about 95% of the 3 year old skills... other than expressive language. Yep, he couldn't utter a single word. He could follow 3 step commands, figure out any puzzle, pattern or problem they gave him, he knew 1-5, most of his letters and several colors and shapes. He jumped like a mad man, threw balls, kicked balls and showed excellent fine motor skills. That's when they told us that something was definitely wrong. It is more than a developmental delay. They were at a total loss and had no idea what could be going on. That evening while speaking with my sister-in-law, who has an autistic son and has become such an expert at all of this stuff, she mentioned apraxia. I had heard of this disorder, but knew nothing about it. I ended up spending hours online reading everything I could find about it, and unfortunately it seemed to describe Nathan perfectly.

What is apraxia? Basically it's a neurological disorder that prohibits a message from getting to the mouth from the brain. The area of the brain that tells the mouth which muscles to move to make a sound are damaged or not fully developed. Kids with this disorder know what they want to say, but cannot begin to actually say it.

October 26
The awesome therapist from First Steps who did Nathan's evaluation called and said she had been doing some research and thought she may know what is going on. You guessed it- she thinks he has apraxia. I let her know that I had been researching it all weekend and believed she was correct. I immediately got on the phone and called a Speech Language Pathologist and made an appointment for an evaluation. If this really was his diagnosis, he would need intense therapy as soon as possible.

November 4
We took Nathan for his speech evaluation. We loved the therapist and she was really optimistic that she could help him. She informed us that there was a very good chance he has apraxia, but will need to spend a little more time with him before she makes a diagnosis. She, like First Steps said that she didn't see signs of classic autism, but we needed to continue to watch for PDD-NOS.

November 6
First Steps came back for the IFSP. Nathan qualified for speech therapy, but since there are no speech therapists currently on the matrix he will have developmental therapy instead. This actually works out better, since our insurance would not cover private speech therapy and allow speech therapy with First Steps. So we found a developmental therapist who happened to have a speech background.

Today
This takes us up to today. We have his first speech therapy session tomorrow. We also have an evaluation scheduled in Indianapolis with my nephew's therapist in a couple of weeks and an evaluation at Indiana State in December. We're hoping to get as many perspectives as possible to make sure we are not missing anything. In the meantime, I have started Nathan on Pro-EFA (a specific blend of fish oil that has shown to really improve the speech of apraxic children), we have been blowing out candles, blowing whistles, sucking yogurt with straws, making all kinds of facial expressions, having him eat crunchy foods with his molars, and teaching him more sign language. We're trying very hard to keep it fun for Nathan, and as social as he is, he loves the attention of the therapists and all the new toys :). I'll report tomorrow on his first therapy session- for now I'm off to fold three days worth of diapers that are still sitting in a clothes basket!