Speech Therapy

Secundus is a talker.  Always has been.  She started talking early and would just babble on and on.  The problem was, none of it was coherent.  As her mom and dad, we were usually able to understand enough of her but others needed us to translate.

 By the time she was 3, it was very clear that she needed speech therapy.  That fall, she kept telling us something about a "gay-go."  For days we could not figure it out.  Finally we realized she was talking about the scarecrow out on the porch.  She was a scarecrow for Halloween that year.

She got evaluated and we were told that she had the articulation of a less-than-18 month old.  Ouch.  She started speech and loved it.  She made awesome improvement quite quickly and was released from the program after a year (I think?)

The beginning of last school year she was 7, starting second grade, and our supervising teacher suggested we have her evaluated again.  Clearly some things (like her r's) are still a struggle and she's reaching the age where that should have corrected itself by now.  Her bad articulation is also effecting her spelling.

I started the process but procrastination happened and she didn't start going to appointments until the last month of school.  But now we'll be all set up to start again immediately after school starts.  The therapist revealed to me that one of her underlying problems is that she does all her sounds in the back of her mouth.  But sounds like "sh," "r," and "ch," need to be brought forward with lips in an O shape.

I'm so glad Secundus has such a good attitude about needing speech help.  She never complains when I stop her (even mid sentence) to help her correct a word.  And she thinks therapy is fun.

One thing she used to constantly say wrong was "breakfast."  She used to call it "bref-kist."  Many hours were spent teasing her about that one.  She now says it right.  The new one that's funny to us is "character."  She says, "care-up-ter"  I don't understand why she puts that p in there!