Travis

Today is 1/12/04 and Travis is 6 years 2 months and in fulltime mainstream school. After completing six months early intervention he was accepted at ican speech and language unit for one year. He made fantastic progress there and the following September (2002) he and two of the children he went to the ICAN with started mainstream school. We parents requested the three children were placed together which they were. He is now in year one at infant school and has come on really well. He no longer needs speech therapy outside of school but required help in the classroom. He can attempt any sound and 85% of his speech is intelligible.

Click here to listen to Travis on 1/12/04 and hear him say, "Hello my name is Travis Whymark and I am six. I like playstation, playing the computor, ninja turtles, monster inc ...1 2 3 etc etc up to 32. bye bye"

Let his mother, Natalie, know what you think of Travis' speech, by writing to her at:
N.whymark@ntlworld.com
.

Today is 4/2/01 and Travis is 3 years 5 months. Travis was diagnosed with severe verbal, oral and articulative dyspraxia & expressive language disorder in May 2000. He has seen an occupational therapist, a pediatrician, and is currently having weekly visits to a speech therapist for individual one-hour sessions. He has a massage about once a month. He has just finished a early intervention program, and has been nominated for an ICAN speech and language unit.

Click here to listen to Travis on 7/20/00 and hear him say, "mummy, daddy, lemonade, sam, jade, nanny, school, me, watch telly, me go out now, me sit up here, bye-bye, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, bye-bye, silly cow."

Let his mother, Natalie, know what you think of Travis' speech, by writing to her at:
N.whymark@ntlworld.com
.

About Travis
by Natalie

I have three children, Loz who is 9, Travis and Olly who is ten months old. Travis was born on the 5th November 1997, I had an awful long labor and he was born with the use of the vontouse, with the cord around his neck, needing oxygen.

I realized there was a problem when he was just over one but was told he was a typical boy, played with cars too much and that his big sister spoke for him. At this point we took him to the local health visitor when he was 15 months old, they saw him again when he was 18 months old then he saw a speech therapist when he was 21 months old. He was diagnosed in May this year but previous to that they had mentioned Verbal Dyspraxic but wouldn't be definite on it.

Eventually after battling with the speech therapists etc, I found him help. It has been a hard struggle and he has found it hard at times. He has speech therapy weekly and intense therapy for a week every four weeks. He also starts an early intervention program in September. Travis is a lovely happy little boy who has changed a lot over the past three months, he is eager to communicate and eager to please others. As much as I dislike his problem I would never change him. He is a happy, smiling, contented little boy who brings joy to our lives.

He has picked up some Makaton sign language and is making slow progress, up until two months ago he acted very shy and would hide from anyone, he also had little eye contact but he is improving and seems to want to learn. He gets 45 minutes per week speech therapy and as from the end of September he will attend a Early years intervention program and also every month has one weeks intense speech therapy with a speech and language pathologist. That's about all I can say, he is a happy, lovely little boy who wants to talk so much yet finds it so hard.