My daughter is a beautiful, calm, sweet, loving 17 month
old. She is truly a wonderful daughter to have. She is the first person to hug a
sorry if she made someone cry (unprompted) and also the little girl who will act
like a goof just to get everyone giggling. She is so smart. She figured out how
to turn on the television and game counsel after seeing her brother do it once.
She was walking at 10 months and 1 day old. She was my little nursling and
nursed until she was 16 months old when a medication given to me by my doctor
forced us to end our breastfeeding relationship. She is healthy but on the
petite side. She is honestly such a gift.
But she doesn't speak. Not a word. She has spoken
four times, so she has the skills. She just doesn't choose to talk. So due to
her doctor freaking out about this (and to be honest me also) she went to a
developmental pediatrician. I was told that she is just a high needs non-vocal
healthy little girl. BUT she still doesn't talk. I've gone through many
different emotions about this. For the longest time I was ok with it. I figured
her time would come when she was ready. Then I started to get worried. Is there
something wrong with her that the doctors are missing that could be causing
this? Am I somehow failing her somehow and responsible for her not talking? Then
I go back the "she's fine" and start the whole chain over.
To make the fact that she doesn't want to talk yet more
diffcult is the fact that she hates diapers and is basically trying to
potty train herself. The fact that she doesn't speak makes this current
transition more difficult for her. So to assist her in communicating her
bathroom needs with me I taught her the sign for potty (she already knows lots
of other signs). Problem is the sign for potty is a lot like the sign for all
done (which she uses when she is finished with a meal or snack) except for a
closed vs. open hand. So it's not working. I am at a lost on how to further
assist her. I don't want to push her but at the same time I don't want to hold
her back from changes that she is letting me know that she is ready for.
I've had so many people tell me that I should stop allowing her to sign to
me and then she would be forced to talk. While I can see the logic with this
argument I just can't do that to my daughter. I can not take away the one
way that she feels comfortable communicating with the world just so she would
MAYBE communicate the way others think she should. In my eyes her wide knowledge
of ASL (American Sign Language) is a tool that she possesses, and very well I
might add. Should I take away a useful, positive tool of hers because she isn't
doing what others expect of her? How could taking away the only way she
communicates be a good thing? Wouldn't that be locking all this developing
personality away? I feel it would be locking her into herself which
would cause her to have more emotional breakdowns. So should I do this to
meet societies view of normal? No. When she is ready she will talk,
until then her ability to put two to three signs together to form sentences is
enough to assure me that she has a pretty dang good grasp on her language
skills.