Can I get a mmmmmm.

We have been working diligently to encourage Abigail to increase the kinds of sounds that she is making, but still have not heard any of the typical consonant sounds that you hear from a baby her age. One of the first sounds that you can expect is the "b" sound, perhaps in the form of "ba" to refer to her bottle. Shortly after that the "d" for "da da" and the "m" for "ma" appear and before you know it your little one is speaking jargon (which I recently learned is an actual technical term for that period of time when your baby babbles with such inflection and tone that it sounds like she's having a conversation in a foreign language.) I have been plugging away at momma, but I would settle for a "ba" or even a "da" at this point. While she has progressed developmentally in some areas of speech--she has engaged in repetitive sounds (the ah ah ah sequence) and in back and forth style verbal play--she is still exhibiting a true speech delay.

We will be able to start medical model speech therapy (this is the type of speech therapy where the therapist actually works directly with Abigail to stimulate speech sounds, while the consultative approach consists more of the therapist providing suggestions to Ben and I on how to encourage her speech at home) in just a few weeks when Abby turns one. I am trying to decide on where to start her speech therapy. There are a few local outpatient centers here that I can try, but much like everything else in this process we are totally new to this and I'm not sure how to know if I've chosen a good speech therapist or not. Luckily my sister-in-law is very versed in speech therapy (she has a little boy with Apraxia) and she was able to provide me with some great guidelines:

1. A good speech therapist should have a theory and process that he/she is able to explain to you regarding your child--this is the most important quality.
   
2. The speech therapist should explain how you can continue what he/she is doing during the session at home.
3. The speech therapist should be open and receptive to any ideas/concerns that you have regarding your child.

While these are just the basics, they are at least a good starting point for us. While I would like to explore speech therapy at Cincinnati Children's so that all of her care is centrally located, I just can't justify driving 45 minutes each way once a week without at least trying a few of the local places.