Carole Martin, AuD CCC-A/SLP

Matthew, age 3, learns while having fun with his parents, Kim and Mark, at the Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders, a RiteCare Program facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

During our lives there are times when we look back and say, “Now that was a turning point.” We call them milestones. For children there are many developmental milestones: first sitting up, first step, first word, and first tooth lost. We tend to take them for granted, unless we find our baby is not reaching those milestones.

For Matthew, life started out rough. He was three months premature, and he struggled for the first couple of months just to stay in this world. For his parents, this was not what they envisioned for their first-born child. When his parents were finally able to bring him home to Cheyenne, they found their work was only beginning. It wasn’t long before they realized that Matthew’s milestones would be major hurdles.

At 15 months of age, Matthew and his parents came to the Cheyenne Scottish Rite Clinic for an evaluation. By 12 months of age, most infants can say a few words. At 15 months, Matthew had no words, no way of communicating. His first summer in therapy was focused on working with his parents to teach Matthew two signs: “more” and “help.” Matthew’s mom and dad regularly attended therapy sessions. They learned some basic signs and how to get Matthew to vocalize more. By Matthew’s second birthday, he was consistently using about six signs and beginning to say two to three words. While most two-year-olds are putting two-word sentences together, Matthew was struggling with just a few isolated words. For his parents, however, it was an exciting time to hear him say his first words.

During that year, Matthew became a star. His vocabulary began to expand rapidly, and he started putting two- and three-word sentences together. By his third birthday, he had almost caught up with his peers. This last year, 2003, was spent helping him catch up with imaginative play, simple problem solving, and learning to control his environment through the wonderful world of language.

Reviewing a videotape we made at the beginning of therapy, his mother, who had become used to Matthew talking, was surprised at how far her young son had come in a relatively short time. Today, Matthew may chatter non- stop. For his family, Matthew’s first words were both a struggle and a joy. And, for the clinic, Matthew’s graduation was a milestone of the best kind: success.

Note: The above article is reprinted from the Scottish Rite Magazine of Freemasonry in Wyoming (Winter 2004).

Contacts: Scottish Rite Clinic, Masonic Temple, 1820 Capitol Avenue, Cheyenne, WY 82001-4530; Tel. 307-638-2610; Fax 307-637-7160; srclinic@qwest.net