Adventures in Sign Language

So we are at his well baby check up and the his pediatrician ask is he babbling? Can he say Mama? Dada? Nope. My kid is mute, I joke. We know he can hear so we don't think that anything is seriously wrong with him. She casually says by now he should be saying simple words but you already have a kid so you know the mile stones. Sure, but my oldest was walking at 7 months so I figured with this one I would slow my roll a bit. So we did schedule a hearing test for him and everything was fine. But we were concerned as to why he wasn't saying anything. So we wait a few more months and at his next well baby check up she asks the same questions. I said nope, not a peep. He grunts when he wants things and points and it is exhausting trying to figure out what he wants. She refers to specialist who works with developmentally delayed infants/toddlers. Since he is actually to young for speech therapy, she gives me simple exercises to "teach" him to talk. Now every week I have to go meet with the specialist to mark the progress. No, the boy is still mute. We come up with a more detailed IFSP. Finally old enough for speech therapy (occupational and physical would be added but that is for another time.)and a therapist will visit our home once a week to work on his speech. The main problem isn't that he cannot speak, it's that he won't speak. He just doesn't want to. So add more sign language to the routine. He is quite happy with non-verbal communication. He actually likes that I sign to him. He won't sign back but at least I have some line of communications with him. It is odd how a 19 month old is really running your life. Still no labels yet other than the fact that he is developmentally delayed in speech, gross motor, and lacking some fine motor skills. I couldn't help but to wonder what the problem was. We would continue to have the speech therapist come to the house, he would speak for her, he got comfortable and let it be know that he could say simple words. She was also helping with the occupational therapist by getting him use to people coming in his personal space (which he hated) so since he was getting along it was time to shake things up and introduce him to another speech therapist. The boy turned mute again. So each time he got use to a therapist we had to change therapist. It was a good test for him but with each new therapist he would simply clam up again. So until he wants to talk, I will be using simple sign language to communicate his wants and needs. Looking back it was kind of funny. So stubborn, so determined to have his way.