Speech Therapy

My son has always had a huge vocabulary. HUGE for his age. At the one year appointment, when the pediatrician asks "how many words does he have" I was nearly dumbstruck... I knew it was coming, but was unprepared. "Ummmm... Lots" I stammered. Pediatrician gives me a quizzical look as my son sits quietly playing... and not talking. At that point, he had too many words to count... problem was, I was the only one that knew what he was saying (I mean, would you know that fahp wajj was his way of telling you he was about to throw something out? somewhere in his mind, fahp wajj was synonymous with garbage).

At the grocery store, he had a cashier girlfriend. Each time we visited, she'd try to strike up a conversation, and he'd enthusiastically reply to each of her questions... Then I'd translate. He was never one to simply reply "fine" when you ask "how are you?"

We considered speech therapy, but I knew kids with bigger speech issues, and he was obviously hearing us most of the time. He was able to duplicate even difficult sounds, as long as we told him how to make them with his mouth.... But do you really expect a 4 year old with a vocabulary that rivals most adults to slow down for his pronounciation? When his school offered informal speech therapy, we gladly accepted. Can't hurt right?

I've worked in the public school system. I've worked with speech therapists. As with anything, there's the good and the bad. And there's the variable of one therapist assigned to every child in the elementary school. In our case, our speech therapist also works with Carmen. I know this because Carmen shows up on our report card. Because our speech therapist wrote a little paragraph to explain how Carmen was progressing, and then copy and pasted it into Wyatt's report... without changing her name in one place.

She tells us how "his little tongue comes poking out" when really, he's closer to being tongue tied and keeps that thing in his mouth almost always. She tells us how he can't get the inital sound and medial sound, but he has those ending sounds down, when we see him start his words out clearly, and then drift off at the end. She tells us of all the great progress he's made, when, who's fooling who, he is for the first time in his life around a group of children that speak more clearly than he does. Of course he's made progress, he has a model, he has the motivation of needing to be heard by other kids and his teacher... do we really think 5 minute speed sessions a few times a week is due credit for Wyatt's hard work?

Report cards have come out again. I'm reminded to work on his homework that "will be coming home weekly." I recieved homework for the first time since November along with that report card. It was the 4th time this school year we've received it. Each time, it's a work sheet with pictures that tie into a certain letter sound. They've moved on to /r/ at this point. Really? His speech is as bad as you'd have me beleive, so you're going to work on one of the notoriously hardest sounds, in the winter/spring when allergies are at their worst? You're going to do the sound that pediatricians have determined many kids don't hear until they are 6-8 years old? You're going to ask me to practice this sound with my child, but not give instruction to me about the proper way to use your mouth and lips and vocal cords to do so? You're going to work on this sound in the initial position of the word, rather than as part of a consonant blend where it's known to be easier? Because success isn't something we look for in speech class?

I try not to be "that" parent, in so many ways, but my child doesn't need to miss out on class time in this way. It's offensive. Time to schedule the parent teacher conference!