I KNEW it!

I've been worried about James for a while, now. He's 3 years old, but doesn't have much of a vocabulary. He doesn't ask for things, he doesn't comment on what he sees, and he doesn't ask questions. Ever. Only this last summer did he learn animal names and sounds, and parts of his body. I don't think he understands colors, yet. Today I discovered that he will put things in the trash when you ask him to. If he were 1 this would be normal, but he's not.

On the other hand, he's very observant and watches everything around him. He loves to play and whoops and hollers with the best of them. He loves to be tickled, can climb anything, and has joined his siblings' games on (almost) their level. He loves music, too, always has, and sings beautifully. In fact, he can pick up the tune of anything he hears and will hum along. It's humming, though. No words.

I talked to his pediatrician at his well-check, in September. He definitely has a speech delay --he should be using pronouns in 4-word sentences but I can't get him to use nouns in 1-word statements--and we got a referral to speech therapy. Part of the evaluation for that turned out to include a hearing test and I could not have been happier. I knew he could hear, but if he had just enough of a loss that things were muffled, then he wouldn't be picking up much and every word out of his mouth would be slightly garbled. Right? After all, what do you do with the hum of conversation in a crowded room? You tune it out because it doesn't quite make sense. And then when someone tries to talk to you? It's hard to make out what they're saying.

So today was his visit to the ear, nose, throat doctor, with a special trip inside the audiologist's booth. I had been wondering how they would be able to do a hearing screen on him, since he can't communicate well enough to understand that he's supposed to say something when he hears a beep, but they've got it all covered. In opposite corners of the booth are speakers, and on top of the speakers are a Pooh or Tigger figurine that lights up, dances and has flashing lights as a reward for looking that direction. James thought it was a funny game, listening for the squawks, buzzes and beeps so that he could find the dancing toys. He got his ear drums measured, too (how, I don't know, beyond them putting a rubber thing in each of his ears) and they're slightly "depressed", meaning they don't move quite the way they should. It's small enough that it could be from an ear infection (they've been checked twice in the last month and a half and no infection in sight) or congestion (slight allergies, but that's it), but the end diognosis is that he's hearing the world as though through ears full of cotton balls.

Oh, Vindication, you are bitter-sweet indeed.

Still, the ENT says James should definitely do speech therapy, but also that he should be talking just fine when he comes back for a checkup in 6 months. We have hope. And just in case, I've got 3 years of ASL under my belt.