LiL’deviL’s LittLe famiLy

We brought Ethan to see his GP last Monday regarding his speech. We used to see another GP whose clinic is on the same road as where we live but I didn’t think he was good enough so I got this recommendation from our landlord’s wife. It’s at a medical centre about 15 minutes drive from our house. The first time we went to see her was for Ethan’s 18-month check up. She did a little bit more than our usual GP but still not enough compared to some of the doctors I read in other’s blogs. We went for his 18-month before we went back to KL and that time the only words he was saying was “mama” and “dada”. The GP said it was alright for his age then but told us to check in again after three months.

Four months had gone after that and still he was just saying those two words. So we brought him in again and this time she was a little concerned. At 22 months he should be saying more than that. She convinced me that there’s nothing to worry about but referred me to a paed just to be on the safe side and see if we need to send Ethan to see a speech pathologist. She also mentioned that a private speech pathologist could be a little expensive and recommended that I go to the public hospital one.  That time I thought our health insurance would cover that but then I found out that our package doesn’t cover speech therapy. So I’m still thinking if I should upgrade our health insurance for the speech therapy which is not covered by medicare. There is a waiting period of two months if I upgrade.

So today we went to see Dr. Kathy Lee, the paed whom the GP said was very good, and turned out to be very good indeed.  She asked a lot of questions and gave Ethan a little check up. I told her that we speak two different languages to him and I also taught him sign language. She said that it’s good to use more than one language with them as they learn faster when they’re younger. But if at one point he still won’t speak we might have to stick to just one language for a period and we don’t know that yet. She asked if each of us speaks only one language to him we told her both of us use a mixture of Cantonese and English just as in our own daily conversations. The good thing is that Ethan understands us when we instruct him to do something, which means his hearing is fine, but she did ask us to bring him in for a hearing test just to be sure.

As for the sign language she said it’s supposed to speed up his speech… seems not with him. She asked me how many signs he knows and I said about 30-40 or more. I started using signs when he was very young, when I read him books, and he started to pick up before he turned one. Since now that he’s not speaking, I hesitated on whether I should continue teaching him because I was afraid that it might be the cause of his speech not improving. On the other hand, since he’s not speaking, and he’s picking up signs pretty quick at this age, it is a good form of communication. The doctor asked me to keep it going.

Dr Lee also asked about Ethan’s drawing, mentioned that speech come from the same part of the brain. I said he draws round and round or back and forth, which was good enough for his age, and told me by the time he’s two he should be able to draw a straight line and a circle (not round and round). She told me to give him at least 5 minutes of drawing time each day.

Another part that relates to the speech is the way he chews his food. So I said that Ethan doesn’t eat much and is a very picky eater who only likes to eat plain rice, noodle or pasta with no meat or vege/fruits. He also like to eat junks like biscuits or fries. Sometimes when I feed him meat he chews on them but spits them out if they’re too hard to chew. He eats other lumps like potatoes or carrots. Actually I think he can eat/chew any food if he really want to. He has no trouble eating hard cookies. She suggested that Ethan go for a blood test because his iron level or vitamin level might be low, which caused the no-appetite in food.

At the end of our meeting, Dr Lee referred Ethan to the hospital’s speech pathologist, referred him to Child and Youth Health for a hearing test, and we have to bring him to the hospital to do a blood test. We will have to wait for a call from the hospital and CYH for the speech therapy and hearing test.