The Holy Grail of Speech Therapy - Gemiini.org

For those of you who know me, or have spent any significant amount of time with Jacob, you know that at nearly 4 years old, he is still pretty much non-verbal.  No seriously.  Not a word.  Barely a syllable.  Or a SOUND.

For a child who is at, or above age in nearly every other aspect of his development, his speech has been the bane of my existence.  

Now, don't get me wrong.  The boy communicates JUST FINE.  He just doesn't talk.  He nods and shakes his head for yes and no, uses several dozen signs, grunts or screams when he wants my attention - depending on where in the house he is in relation to me, and he will come, grab my hand, and direct me to anything he wants - pointing to the offending object.  

But me, being the crazy stickler that I am, insist on wanting him to talk.  I understand how important speech is to his development, and his ability to communicate with the general public as he grows.  In my book, stubbornness and laziness are not a good enough reason not to talk. 

I have worked tirelessly with the speech therapists over Jake's little lifetime to get the boy to say something. And on occasion, he will get excited and say a word or two, but never anything consistently.  Why go through the hassle of talking if you can communicate just fine in other ways, right?  Gah!

In my quest to find a way to get the little boy to talk, I stumbled across a website called Gemiini.org.  I think I talked about it on a previous post and said I'd follow up.  Well guess what.  I'm following up.  Because the program is FREAKING AWESOME!

In the 3 weeks since we started Gemiini, Jake has progressed more than he has in nearly all of his lifetime.  Seriously.  No joke.  (I am not being paid or compensated in any way for this review, by the way). 

So, after 2 weeks, I began to notice that Jake had picked up on several of the new signs (animals) shown on the videos.  I also noticed that he was starting to try to say some of the words. This is HUGE for me.  Because up until now, he wouldn't even try to talk. 

Now, 3 weeks later, I can actually discern a couple of the words he is learning as he watches the videos.  What's even more important than the fact that my little boy is trying to talk, is the amount of noise coming out of his mouth!  Jake has gone from a few occasional grunts, to babbling constantly.  He's working those mouth, cheek, and tongue muscles, which for those who don't have children with Down syndrome, is a BIG thing.

Children with Trisomy 21 are notorious for having big tongues and low muscle tone in their mouths.  So the babbling is a HUGE step.  And an important step in the speaking process.  Think about it.  Non-Trisomy 21 kids start out babbling before anything truly coherent comes out of their mouth.  Which means Jacob has taken the next step in speech development and is well into the beginning phases of speaking.  Wahoo!  Can you tell I'm excited? :)

So, are there any cons about Gemiini?  I only found two things that gave me moment to pause.  First off, it's kind of expensive.  At $50 - $90 per month, I balked a bit.  But it only took me a few minutes to talk myself into the price tag.  Specifically because Jacob's speech is so doggoned important to me.  Secondly, because Gemiini has a sliding pay scale, and third, because this was the expense I decided to use Jake's Developmental Disabilities reimbursements on for the year.  To me, Jacob's speech is the single most important factor in his development right now.

Secondly, the videos are a bit hokey.  With that being said, Jacob DOESN'T CARE.  He's 3 1/2.  He doesn't care about the quality of the video.  He just likes looking at the pictures of animals, and talking to the older kids on the videos.  There are no bells and whistles to the videos, and it did, admittedly, take a week or so for Jake to sit still long enough to get anything from the videos.  But I sit him down in front of the computer at breakfast and let him watch the video while he's eating and it seems to work just fine. In fact, now he gets pretty excited when I turn it on.  So, does it really matter?  No.  

Plus, we're only talking 10-15 minutes of video per day.  It's not very long.  His attention span can't handle much more.  

So, in a nutshell:  Gemiini.org.  Worth the investment?  Absolutely.  I'd recommend it to everyone.  

I'll keep you posted on his progress!!!

UPDATE (03/16/15)  We're finally back onto Gemiini!  Check out our latest post: http://upsanddownsoftheallreds.blogspot.com/2015/03/update-on-gemiiniorg-its-been-long-time.html

Are Those Words I Hear?

How can it be that it's been 4 MONTHS since my last post?!?!

Oh, that's right.  Life has a way of seeming to slip through your fingers at mock speed when you're the mother of four incredibly wonderful, but unbelievably different children.  Living life with an over-achiever 18-year old senior, a just-figuring-himself-out 14 year old, a precocious smarty-pants-wants-everyones-100%-attention 4-year old, and ever-curious-crazy-busy-wonderfully-delightful 3 year old sometimes takes its toll on me.  

But I wouldn't change a single minute of it for all the money in the world (don't quote me on that in the midst of the chaos though!)

Jacob is already 1/2 way through his first year of pre-school and the differences are startling to say the least.  Who knew that 2 1/2 hours per day, 4 days a week would make such a difference?  But boy howdy it has!

(Jacob's school picture)

Since school has begun, Jacob has finally begun to say words!!  I'm not saying he's speaking in full sentences or anything, but considering the fact that before pre-school we were lucky if he'd even make a sound, his attempts to vocalize are massive!

Although most of it would be considered merely grunts by the lay man (isn't that always the case when any child is beginning to speak?), he's been generous enough to accompany some of his words with their coordinating ASL sign as well.  Now Jake will not only wave good-bye, but say it as well.  As a fully intelligible word, mind you!  He also says "hi", "mom" (but only when he's mad and can't get my attention any other way), "Elisha" (sounding more like 'la la' - but I'll take it!), "Nate", "no", "dad" and my all time favorite: "three" - which is usually because he is COUNTING to three!!!! Woohoo! 

In addition to the awe-inspiring phenomenon we dub 'speaking' I've noticed that Jake has mellowed.  Yes, MELLOWED!  This is the little boy who wakes up and hits the ground running full-speed from area to area creating disaster faster than a Level 5 tornado.  If you take a moment and watch, one cannot help but marvel at his efficiency.  It's quite impressive, actually, how someone so little can create so much destruction in such a little time. 

This too, has diminished significantly over the last few months.  When we left Children F.I.R.S.T. one of the goals they had for him was to have Jacob sit at an activity for 3 whole minutes before losing interest.  To date, I have seen him "read" books, color, sit for an entire meal at dinner, and, as I write, he is sitting at the back sliding glass doors staring out at the newly fallen snow covering our back yard.  - Oops!  I spoke too soon.  He's now pushing his chair to the cupboards to see if he can pour the cereal out onto the floors!...and now into the living room where he's knocking off all the throw pillows (sigh).  OK, he's not PERFECT!  But his attention span (for things he's interested in) has increased from a minute or two to as long as 10 or 15 minutes for the truly engrossing activities. 

Yes, I would dub pre-school a success.  :)



(Our favorite family past time is listening to Jake laugh!  It's the best sound in the WORLD!)

Now...if I can only motivate myself to get him potty trained.....