Miraculously Cured!

So, I realized that I never updated about how Quincey's speech therapy went.  He went 30 min. every mon and wed for about 1 month total and is now pretty much cured and graduated on August 3rd.  We saw such an improvement after even the very first appointment.  He really just liked his therapist, and the environment and responded to all of the resources that they had there. 
She taught him a lot of techniques to help when he got stuck, like "Stop, take a breath, start over."  When we first took him he just got so frustrated because he had so much to say, and it wouldn't come out fast enough and there was so much tension all over his body, but especially in his face and neck.  I've noticed that he has been able to transfer that tension to his hands now, so he is a bit of a hand talker ;)  (which just runs in the family).
It isn't completely gone though, with Quincey his speech problems are highly influenced by his environment.  Especially, really exciting ones, where he feels like he has to compete with the noise.  Like when we went to Vegas with my sisters family, I noticed that he regressed a bit.  But, we just remind him of his speech tools and he responds like a champ.
I have been hearing a lot from people that know him how amazing the change has been. Life is a little better now all around.  Quincey is much happier, a lot less frustrated, and G and I too.  So glad we were able to get some help, and hope it lasts!

Quincey with Kandy practicing smooth, and relaxed speech with a swing.  I was amazed at how well that worked. 

Quincey's Speech Appointment

Quincey did so good at his first speech appointment.  He loves it.  The first time we went they recorded him having a conversation with the therapist (who's name is Candy) and then she went back and counted all of the disfluencies that he had in that time.  He had 340 disfluencies in that 15 minutes. Now, no one always has 100% fluency in their speech, it is normal to say 'um' every once in awhile, etc. One thing that you don't see in normal speech though is blocking, when you are trying to say something and it won't come out.  He had 10 of those in the 15 min.  Crazy!!!  It is easy to see how we can both get so frustrated!  
Candy sat him on her lap and held his hands as he leaned backward.  While he did this he practiced stretching his speech, and saying things longer and slower.  All of that going backwards right after breakfast started giving him hiccups though, so she stopped that.  Then she held up pictures of things and had him say the words slowly in a sentence ie: 'that is a xylophone'.  Then they played with trains and when he needed more track he needed to say, "More track please!"  "Thank you!" A lot of it is just getting him to recognize what is going on while he is speaking.  And if he starts to have 'bumpy' speech, she tells him to stop and start over again, and he does really well the second time.  So! So far so good.  We have another appointment tomorrow.