My son was a later talked and when he started, he wasn’t the biggest chatter box. He communicated very well with actions, pointing, repetition, etc (and with mommy and daddy being able to guess most requests before he asked). His comprehension from an early age was ridiculous – he has an incredible memory so knew what things were early (including all letters of the alphabet by the time he was 2 and spelling his name soon after). But the speech was definitely delayed.
Fast forward to now and while it has gotten better, he has sentence structure etc. his clarity is still not always there. It was time (it probably was sooner) to get him assessed.
I took him privately because I could get in right away and felt I could control the setting a bit more. If I didn’t like the therapist, I could choose another etc. My guy can be a little shy and reserved (only to strangers!) so I wanted him to be comfortable.
Our first meeting was a huge success. He instantly warmed up to the therapist, a woman probably close to my age. He was more than willing to answer questions, and had fun identifying pictures and describing them.
She confirmed what we thought: Language (comprehension,knowledge of words) was certainly not the issue, but speech was.
She also confirmed the sounds that I knew he was having a hard time with. L. K. Th. W. Some Ss. And while in some cases (like K I believe) the sound may not come until he’s older, it’s a great time to start working on it.
In addition, and more specifically, we he has a hard time lifting his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Say the word Love. The word Cat. See how the tongue does different things? He needs more control over it and better placement.
We were given some exercises that we do each day to encourage this. Popsicle sticks on his tongue that he tries to push up. Clicking sounds. Moooo. Toooo. Boooo sounds. Licking peanut butter off the roof of his mouth (his favourite – ‘mommy, let’s do peanut butter exercise’) etc.
We’ll go back soon to see how he’s doing. He is trying very hard, and when he says a word incorrectly, we repeat it a few times and have him repeat it too. He’s more than willing to participate so that’s a good sign. She did say that while willingness plays a role, so does readiness, so he may be too young for some things but we keep working on it.
I’m happy we finally went. I should have when the baby was little maybe but I wasn’t in a place to commit and I don’t think he would have been as responsive as now.
But I learned something new. Did you know that speech delays/impediments are hereditary? I didn’t, but yet, when I was younger (older than him) I had to do speech therapy as well. I was in grade 5 and still remember the exercise ‘homework’ I had for speech – many similar to the ones he is doing now!
So I know what he’s going through and what benefit we’ll likely see from it. Now is the time to do it and will only make things easier for him when he starts school in the Fall. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
Though, I have to say, I’ll miss how he pronounces some words (until recently, when he was hungry he used to say he was ‘horny’. Come on, it’s kinda funny 😉
Do you have experience with a speech therapist? Have your children gone?
