My Daughter: Reading & Talking

I've chronicled Jaycee's verbal speech development over the years on this blog. For years, Jaycee was "nonverbal" due to her severe childhood apraxia of speech. She relied on her communication device and sign language to communicate during this time. She slowly improved her skills and built a base of spoken words. That led me to refer to her as "minimally verbal." (Here's an old post about her move from nonverbal to minimally verbal.)

Jaycee's verbal speech continues to improve. At age 11, she is attempting to speak now more than ever. As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, I must admit that I didn't have much faith that she would develop verbal speech after age 10, but she is proving me wrong. It's exciting to hear her new words, which allows me to get a fuller picture of what she understands and thinks about.

Jaycee still does a combination of words, gestures, and communication device assistance for a total communication approach. But, her voice is becoming her primary way to communicate. Yay!!

So, today I share a short video of my child reading single words with her voice. Some of the words are clearer than others. Jaycee can read simple sentences, but I choose to video single words instead.

Here's Jaycee reading some words out loud:

This post is written for Down syndrome awareness month- a time to celebrate achievements like this!