Life with Lowe: First Words

As our babies grow in their first year, you wonder what their first word will be. Especially when it comes to the two most important words– “mama” or “dada.” Which parent is going to win the first word battle, like my husband and I did when my daughter said her first word. It was “dada.”

Noah, however, recently said “mom” along with this very cute smile because he knows he said something that made me very happy. He doesn’t say it often. It’s still said when he’s encouraged to say it rather than him calling for me when he needs something. I’ll take what I can get! I see improvement in his speech every day. So, by this time next year, I may have a post about how he NEVER stops talking.

Noah turned four in July and up until about a month ago, he’s been mostly non-verbal. The only word he’s known for a while is “eat.” The boy likes to eat so that wasn’t a big surprise. Noah went from grunting sounds to word attempts and I credit a lot of it with his speech therapy that he gets nine times a month. He’s been with his current speech therapist for about 10 months and I see how he enjoys the games she plays with him and encouraging him to repeat words. He can’t say many words properly but the fact that he tries something when you encourage him to repeat you, has been wonderful to see with Noah.

I knew it would take this long (or longer) for Noah to begin speaking. This is typical with a boy with Lowe Syndrome. Statistically, LS boys may begin talking around age four or five. However, that’s not to say there are some LS boys who start talking sooner. There are and there are some that are much older and are still non-verbal.

Recently for the first time, Noah came up to me and said “opp” with a very soft “p” sound but I knew he was trying to say, “off” and pointed to his long-sleeve shirt. He doesn’t like long sleeves. It’s a fight in the colder weather for him to stay happy wearing warmer clothes, however, the fact he came up to me and said what he wanted made my whole day. I rewarded his telling me what he wanted by taking his long-sleeve shirt off and put on a short sleeve since we weren’t going out the rest of the day and we both ended up pretty happy.

Everyday, Noah is becoming more confident in saying small words, like no, eat, more, however, most of the time it’s just babbling. You almost think he’s talking in another language the way he speaks and uses his hands to express certain “words” he says. His speech therapist says that’s a good thing because even the babbling words are becoming more clear, even though he’s not really saying anything we understand.

I am so proud of how far Noah has come and I can tell he’s just going to keep improving his speech each day as he feels more confident in doing so. We’ll keep encouraging him everyday to use his words to express himself and now that he said “mom” first, daddy now wants us to focus on Noah learning “dad.” Maybe I can make that an early Christmas gift and practice with Noah when my husband is at work. I know he would certainly love to hear “dad” or “dada” coming from Noah. We have some time. We’ll see if we get there and surprise my husband with Noah finally saying the word he’s been wanting to hear for three years.

Happy Holidays to all!

Read more about author Jenna Maddix here.