I’ve been monitoring Kairo’s ability to communicate since the day he was born. I was around for his first word, and I made sure to continue pushing his development from then on. To maximize his speaking abilities, I read daily for over thirty minutes. Every time he said a word–even something as simple as “ba”–I would mimic the sound. When Kairo evolved and formed words or sentences, I would hold imaginary conversations with him. As a result, my big guy started holding real talks with me at an early age.

Kairo made a lot of progress over the years and manages a vast vocabulary. Just today he said, “Daddy, I stubbed my toe!” after hitting his foot on the wall. His words that impress me the most are:

Hypothesis
Underwater diver
Dinosaur names (pteranodon, stegosaurus, and some other ones that I can’t spell)
Nectar
Composting

These are the ones that I can think of easily, but there are more. My toddler never ceases to amaze me, which inspires me to drive his education. However, I was a bit unprepared for changes that occurred recently. His speaking abilities began to wane. As a teacher, I know that reading and language skills easily regress, but I didn’t expect it to happen to my kid.

Regression Timeline
Two months ago

Tiyaanah and I noticed that Kairo would mumble when he was nervous. We didn’t think much of it.

One month ago

Kairo started muttering all new words instead of trying to learn the pronunciation. Again, I didn’t think much of it, so I would work harder to make out what he was saying.

Three weeks ago

Over half of Kairo’s sentences became a blur. Tiyaanah and I had to tell Kairo to slow down repeatedly. We were saying “Speak clearly,” for nearly everything. And he grew increasingly frustrated with us.

Intervention

At this point, we were worried. I thought that I finally messed up and gave the boys too much television (whoops). Or it had to be because we were trapped indoors for so long.

Tiyaanah and I both began researching ways to improve his speech. However, we stumbled across a straightforward solution. We both forced Kairo to mimic our words, and he did it flawlessly. From this, I recognized that Kairo was always smiling when talking, so he wouldn’t move his lips enough. Tiyaanah noticed that he wouldn’t move his teeth.

As a solution, I decided to enunciate every word for two weeks straight. If you caught me on Marco Polo recently, you probably heard me dragging out my sentences by accident. This was a practice I implemented to help Kairo remember how to form his lips to create certain sounds.

Results?

There was never a problem. My kid was just too freakin’ happy. After getting him to slow down and try to stop smiling so much, we managed to restore his language skills. Now, we’re able to hear about 90% of his words better than ever before.

Kairo still has moments when he speaks in blurs, but I’m trying to relax on correcting him regularly. HE’S THREE. In other words, he doesn’t have to be academically sound anytime soon. This week, I’m moving away from focusing on the little things because I just want him to explore and discover so we can both enjoy the journey of his little life.