Stories

The words to popular nursery rhyme Itsy Bitsy Spider hold special meaning to Jade Davis, mom to then-five-year-old River. "It was the most words he had ever said at one time … it sounds like a very small thing but it was big for us," says Jade.

After noticing River's speech was extremely limited, Jade took River to the doctor, who diagnosed River with autism and recommended speech therapy at CCLLC. While the diagnosis of autism was difficult to hear, Jade says it gave her and her husband a better idea of the types of services they should pursue for their son and also helped them prepare for some of the challenges they could face in the future.

"It's hard to see your child have difficulty communicating their feelings and wants and needs," Jade explains. "I was very nervous to begin speech therapy with him, but also excited to see how it would help him."

And help him it did! River spent the first few years of his life nearly nonverbal, but quickly started making progress through speech therapy sessions with Katie at CCLLC. River's dad, Seth, was even able to see River's progress first-hand as he brought River to his therapy sessions each week. "At the time we began bringing River to see Miss Katie, he communicated with a very limited number of one-word requests," says Jade. But now? River uses full sentences to communicate. "He still needs prompting sometimes, but he uses 'yes' and 'no' correctly in many situations, which he could not do before at all. He uses a lot of borrowed language, saying things he sees other people pay in similar situations."

Jade has also noticed a change in River initially struggling during transition times between activities or destinations, to now successfully making choices between objects and activities without getting upset.

River's therapist, Katie, has also been encouraged by River's progress since he started seeing her in September 2018. "I worked hard to create a space River would feel safe in," Katie explains. "I let River guide our treatment sessions and I responded to him using techniques such as multi-model communications and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices."

River, Jade and Seth have all benefitted from Katie's speech therapy style. "Miss Katie is fantastic," says Jade. "River is always so excited to get [to CCLLC]. Katie is constructive in her ideas and supportive of the many intricacies that make River who he is. She has also given us many ideas of things we can do at home to continue to help him progress."

River's journey toward effective communication skills isn't over yet, but Jade is now confident River is getting the help he needs. "While we still have a long way to go, we feel much more confident in our journey with CCLLC helping us."