Our second foster placement was a toddler. She didn’t talk much when she arrived at 21-months old. I was very concerned for her because I was used to toddlers who were vociferous. After four months living with us and working with ECI, she was much more verbal and had added a lot of words.
I was concerned about Jessie’s language development early, but ECI wouldn’t work with her until she was two. She didn’t seem to make a lot of progress between ages two, when the speech therapist started working with her, and age three when she aged out of ECI and into the school system. She has multiple delays in speech and cognition.
Jessie started preschool this past January and is working with a speech therapist there. She has added a lot of words to her vocabulary and seems to enjoy school quite a bit. She has made a lot of friends and the other children seem to really like her.
While she is making progress with some words, it can still be a struggle to figure out what she’s saying. This tends to frustrate her and cause a lot of tantrums that I’m sure more communicative toddlers don’t have. Her delays with cognition get in the way too. No matter how hard we try and how often we tell her the difference between on and off, she says on for both.
One of Jessie’s favorite shows is Doo Doo Dora. When we shop at Target I always check the $1 bins to see if there’s a new Dora book. She was looking through her latest acquisition and pointed out the choo-choo to me and informed me that it’s azul. Why yes, that is a blue train. I don’t know if she got the Spanish word from Dora or school.