Enter Talking

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be”
–William Shakespeare

Ever since our son, Danny was first diagnosed with developmental delays 19 years ago, we’ve been working on encouraging him to speak and to use alternative communication systems such as picture cards, or more recently, “talking” apps on his Ipad. With his overall low muscle tone, love of repetitive phrases and breath issues, it’s been a very long, tough challenge to get any kind of conversation going with him.

We’ve gone through whistle therapy, audio training therapy, a dozen speech therapists and tons of articulation drills. We bought enough bubble-blowing toys for an entire nursery school. And there are plenty of places around town I know only from taking Danny to speech therapy nearby. But even with all of that effort on everyone’s part, he still can’t say much that strangers can understand, and even family members can struggle to try to figure what he is saying.

In the last few weeks though, there’s been some golden moments.

On Tuesday, I took him to a physical therapy treatment at the County-operated Medical Therapy Unit (MTU), and as part of the protocol, the physical therapist was asking me about the condition of all his various mobility devices –bath rail, wheelchair and walker. During this questioning, Danny was lying down on the examining table, with his head on a pillow, looking up at no particular spot, but when he heard the question about his walker, he quickly sat up, got himself off the table and grabbed the walker.  He pointed to the little holes where the walker is adjusted with a pop-up button and said something that started with a “b” sound I couldn’t understand

Then I remembered.

A few days earlier, one of the walker’s legs had telescoped up, and he had a very tough time trying to use the walker with only three legs, and in fact, he fell down but didn’t get hurt. I eventually figured it out, and was able to “pop” that button back in place. Considering my almost total lack of spatial and fixing skills, I was proud of myself, but even prouder to see Danny participating in the conversation and communicating some pretty useful information. 

Then on Friday night, he asked for a favorite childhood toy at a friend’s house, a toy he hasn’t played with in years. “Toy Ball, Toy Ball, “ he said, clear enough for my friend to understand and track it down in her garage. To my ears, those simple words sounded like Shakespeare.