Processing.....Processing.....

I know that I took my daughter’s level of communication for granted. It just clicked. By the time she was 2 to 2 ½ years old, she could pretty much tell me what she needed and how she was feeling, and why. She was speaking in sentences, she was expressing herself. Tantrums were not an every day ordeal. They happened, but they weren’t something that I dealt with on a constant basis. That old expression (like a sponge) just made sense - it was true! Ever single day, she was just acquiring all these new words and expressions, all these new skills that she was learning from the world around her. It was amazing, and I marveled at it.

Things are different with her little brother Reggie. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but as he gets older, it is becoming more and more apparent that there are things that he is just not processing and retaining. The inability to convey the simplest things like hunger or wanting to go outside and play have led to a frequency in screaming and complete frustration on his part. It’s not just in the verbal sense, he also struggles to show me in a physical sense. At 27 months old, he still does not point at objects. I am seeing that sometimes he is unable to really process what I am telling him, when I say “Go get your shoes, we’re going outside!” or even telling him to come to me when we are outside playing. It is far more complicated than a toddler just trying to express his autonomy. It is just not computing. There are parts of our day that are so repetitive, that he has become acute to them - when I run the water for bath time, he exclaims “Ta Time!” and starts to help take off his clothes. These are small things, that really - even Christopher has already started to retain, but to me, and to Reggie…they are huge.

I began to suspect that he was having some sensory and language issues around the 1 ½ year mark. The constant stomping of his feet that only increased with the level of noise and movement in his environment, it felt like he was trying to find his footing. As if he couldn’t quite figure out where he began and his surroundings ended. The yelling. Oh my God, the yelling. Even when anyone in the house was in the middle of an argument or something upsetting or exciting, we always erred on the side of keeping our voices at a very even level, for the sake of Reggie - and the fact that the volume level we elicited, would bring his up tenfold. Just the sound of people laughing in a room will send him into a complete panic attack. The fact that he was not retaining words and adding them to his vocabulary. For the longest time he was saying the word “nana” for banana, and then he sort of just stopped saying it - and I haven’t heard him say it for several months now. The endless chatter that is so incredibly fast and was so adorable at first, has only increased in frequency - although he has started to throw three word sentences into his strings of verbosity, and I am relieved to say that they are appropriate in their inflection, and usually fit the circumstances that we are in. Still, communication and the ability to comprehend what is being asked or said to him, is a daily battle.

A trip to the grocery store is always a circus act. I have to bring at least four different food and beverage items to keep him stimulated and distracted - and even then, it is still a gamble. The minute we walk in the door, the sights and sounds seem to overwhelm. The yelling and stomping starts almost immediately. There’s no specific reason for it, it’s not because he has something set in his sights that he wants, it’s the overwhelming stimuli. Sometimes the yelling is happy, and other times, it’s at a level of frustration that cannot be soothed or stifled, and so trips are cut short. I won’t even step foot in a restaurant anymore, because along with all the sensory overload stuff, eating is also a huge issue. He will chew on food for hours - and if he finds something that he likes, he will stuff it all in his mouth at once.

I don’t know if I can say that there were a lot of flags when he was a baby. He was generally pretty easy going, but he did have pretty intense stranger anxiety, and sleeping was well - not easy. The slightest noise would wake him instantly, even now.

He can engross himself in stacking and sorting for several minutes at a time. He knew the entire alphabet and all the sounds, his shapes, and his numbers by the time he was 2. I didn’t teach him any of these things, nor did I encourage it. Sometimes he says the letters and numbers so fast and in such muffled tones, that if you aren’t paying attention, you might not really take notice.

He amazes me - the way his mind works, it’s a mystery to me, but I feel that we are peeling back the layers piece by piece and making strides in ways that will help him throughout his development. Sometimes when we’re out at the park, or at play group, people will remark on his very intense and loud babbling, as being cute or adorable, and I just nod and say that he sort of has his own language, and that he’s a “late talker”. Which, really, he is. I don’t know where he will be in one year. Maybe he will be communicating at such an intense and aggravating level, that we will all just be on sensory overload ourselves. I hope and pray for that. I really do. But if he isn’t, then we will continue to look for and find alternative ways to help him express himself, until those receptors start to connect more effectively in his brain.

For now, I know that some sounds are almost painful for him (the covering of his ears has been a pretty distinct clue, among others) - which explains how he is so easily overwhelmed and excited in the most mundane situations. And it explains that one of his first words, although I guess it’s not really a word, was “Shhhhhhh”

We have been working with an educator who does home visits, and a couple of other specialists - it’s been hard. I was both relieved and upset when they told me that he qualified for early intervention. I think that is something that only a parent who has a child with signs or a diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder can really understand.

I just love him so. He has taught me so much already, just in his 2 years.