Yesterday Jacob’s Speech and Language Therapist came to our house for a communication appointment. We haven’t seen her for at least six weeks and since then Jacob has stalled in his development. I’m currently in the process of trying to put together an A5 folder with pages of symbols and words so we can start PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) but this isn’t ready yet. She said she was quite keen to get Jacob moving with his communication so she’s going to come back in a couple of weeks when the folder is set up. We then booked in an intensive three week block of appointments to try different activities and games with him, however she didn’t have any time to do this until August (go figure!).
There wasn’t much we could do in yesterday’s appointment, however she looked through some books with Jacob and tried to engage him in conversation about them. One of the books was a Mr Tumble book about shapes, colours and feelings which also includes Makaton signs. Whilst she was going through the book with him something dawned on me that until now, I guess I hadn’t even realised – Jacob doesn’t know what any colours or shapes are. He knows his favourites, blue and star, but other than that he can’t pick out anything you ask him to. The moment I realised this it really upset me. I thought his understanding was a lot further on than it actually is and even his Speech therapist commented on how we’d have to work on objects and vocabulary as she thought he knew this already.
All i can keep thinking now is, how did i miss this!? How did i come to think Jacob knew more than he actually does? I don’t know why but I did feel genuinely upset yesterday with the realisation that he couldn’t pick out any objects when asked. Today is a new day and i feel stupid for being upset. All that matters to me is that Jacob is happy and well, if he doesn’t know any other shapes or colours than blue or star, who even cares!?
Jacob's fight - living with a rare medical condition 