Keri Presents to the Board

I (Keri) was invited to speak in behalf of Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) at their parent company's, LifePath Systems, board meeting this month.  LifePath Systems is a community-based, non-profit organization created specifically to help individuals and their families dealing with mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities and developmental delays. All board members are volunteers. 

I readily accepted as a way to thank them for all "Team Rhys" has done for our family.  We had a very positive experience with the developmental and speech and language services they offered and Rhys has demonstrated steady and noticeable progress.

As his mother, I shared our story from our circumstances just prior to starting ECI to our current situation and our future plans for Rhys.  In preparing my thoughts, I was so excited to see how far Rhys has come in 15 months.

When we started he was 20 months old, had 3 consonants, one or two vowels, and one true word, "dada".  He mostly responded with "mmm" or giggled to fill the silence.  He would sit for long periods of time holding a few toys but not playing with them really.

Fast forward to now and we have a little boy with an awesome personality!  Rhys now has several consonants and they pop up in the beginning of words quite often, and sometimes in the middle and ends of words too.  He is still very difficult to understand but at least we have something to work with now. 

He is producing 2 word utterances regularly and 3 word utterances are showing up more and more. He asks questions using a rising intonation (candy?). He answers yes and no questions, simple what, who, and where questions. He declines with words more often than tantrums.  He requests with words and follows up with actions if I don't understand. He follows 2 step directions. He understands a great number of basic concepts.    He can count to ten, and label his letters and pronounce many of their sounds. He is learning his colors.

He plays along side and with his peers. Imaginative play is emerging.  He takes turns and is beginning to share. 

Rhys has no cognitive delays now.  He has no receptive language (what he understands) delays anymore.  He is only borderline delayed in his expressive skills and that is primarily due to his articulation disorder which prevents us from understanding him.  He has come a long way!

In short, Rhys rocks!

As his mom, I am just so happy that he is communicating and that as a family, we are functioning better throughout our day!  He has become quite the little man.

Talking to the board was a great experience for me.  Not only did it give me the opportunity to say thank you, and practice speaking in a professional setting, but it gave me a moment to reflect on the blessings our family has received.

In attendance at the meeting was McKinney Police Chief, D. Kowalski.  He remarked important and meaningful it was to have me there.  He said they are always looking at so many other things and are so removed from the services that it really was a benefit to him to see how it is affecting families.