Greetings from Helsinki, Finland

December 21, 2006

Hi everyone!

I noticed this late speaker group and thanked my lucky stars! I've

been wanting to talk about my daughter's speech delays with other

mom's and dad's, but coming from a small country, I haven't actually

bumped into any, though I know many must exist.

Let me introduce myself: My name is Johanna, I'm a working mom with

two wonderful girls, Maija and Tia and a good husband called Mika. We

live in Helsinki, Finland.

Maija was diagnosed at 10 months with hypotonia muscularis (I'm sorry

I don't know the name in English!) – she couldn't sit up on her own

and was only able to crawl. She got up on all fours at age one and

learned to walk at two.

We've been going to neurological check-ups twice a year since she was

10 months and after she turned two they added serious speech delay to

the diagnosis. We've been checked for everything (it seems to me) from

genetic disorders to nutritional disorders. Maija's been checked,

re-checked, measured and scanned in most possible ways and nothing has

come up. At 3,5 years old, she utters 3 barely understandable words

(mom, no and yes).

Luckily we were suggested when Maija was 2 that we should try sign

language and that is now her primary mode of communication. She can

sign close to 100 signs and uses them in sentence format. It was

amazing to see, how her world lit up when we finally understood what

she had to say. Her terrible two's were over after she had learned

around 20 signs.

Maija now goes to a normal kindergarten that has an integrated special

attention group, meaning that the group of 12 kids (from 3-5 yrs) has

7 'normal' kids and 4 kids who need special attention. All teachers

sign. It was so wonderful to see how happy she was to realize, that

other people besides mom and dad and Tia understood her signing!

I'd love to hear how other kids with the same kind of a severe speech

delay have developped later on. What other kinds of alternative

communications methods do you use?

I look forward to the discussions in this group!

Johanna

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