Monday, November 9, 2009

Strong hand, Powerful speech?

Last week I took Braylon in for a neurology appointment. I was a little nervous to hear what the doctor was going to say about B's speech not progressing. This week B will be 19 months old and he is still not communicating with us. Although he says the "dada" sound and the "mama" sound, neither are directed towards us. The only hand gestures Braylon uses are bye-bye and peek-a-boo. So even with all of the awesome improvements going on physically with Braylon, my curiosity about his speech delay and play delay makes me a little nervous.
Anyways.... after the neurologists being amazed at Braylon walking already (remember he didn't even know if he'd ever walk), we began discussing the speech issue. I informed him that Braylon has been receiving speech therapy for some time now, but with no progress. His next question to me was, "Is anyone in the family left-handed?" My response, "Yes, my husband and dad are both left handed, but what does that have to do with speech?!?" It turns out that Braylon would've most likely been left-handed (like daddy), but because of the stroke his strong hand will of course be the right hand. It also turns out that most of the time speech is located on the same side of the brain that controls your strong hand... which in Braylon's case is his right side of the brain (the damaged side). It's amazing how God created our bodies to work!
My nervousness turned into thanksgiving. Although B is still not communicating, I know that he will soon. We are going to have to wait on the speech info to transfer from the right side to the left side of his brain. AND of course we will be on Braylon's time, like everything else.
I've always heard and read that there's power in the tongue. I find it very insightful that a person's strong (powerful) hand is located near the powerful tongue in our brains. It makes me wonder what God's purpose is for that.... Maybe thoughts really do become words and words really do become actions. Who knows?!

No comments:

Post a Comment