I started this post back in Feb. I had written a few hefty paragraphs then my finger accidentally hit the wrong key and everything disappeared. Even though Matt was readily available, nothing could be done to retrieve them (much to my muttering & extreme annoyance). So here is another attempt.
I thought of titling the post "therapy for Addie" and saying how my calendar now includes weekly therapy sessions. But then breaking the news that I was referring to speech therapy not a psychotherapist and although Addie one day may claim I have screwed her up for life and she needs therapy, we have not hit that milestone. Then I decided against being melodramatic, but I still wanted to share those tendencies :)
So anyways, I have started taking her to speech therapy. She actually really enjoys it so far.The room we meet our therapist in is purple (score!) there are dolls and play kitchens, and she gets a sticker at the end. Even though she is being corrected & being taught, it is in the context of play enough that she is receptive and willing. I have been sitting to the side during the sessions and I get tears in my eyes numerous times throughout.Not because I am sad because my child is receiving "special" services. But because she is trying hard and having a good attitude about it and it warms my heart.
Some of you may be surprised to hear she is getting speech therapy because to you she sounds like a typical 2 or 3 year old. Others may have secretly been thinking for months that she is impossible to understand and you know other kids even younger than her that speak much clearer. Both may be true. She has some sounds "l" "r" and "th" that she can not pronounce, but that is not considered a speech delay because it often takes until kids are 5 years old or so for them to develop the muscle tone to make those sounds. However, she also has some other speech tendencies that make her hard to understand.
This all started back in Feb or so when her preschool teacher gently recommended that I have her pediatrician listen to her and decide whether speech therapy might be recommended. Addie's teacher was specifically concerned that Addie being difficult to understand could impede her socialization as she moved up to the 3-5's preschool class next year. If the big kids can't understand her, they may just walk away instead of interacting and playing with her. And that could be really disheartening to Addie because she really looks up to big kids and likes interacting with them. And I, of course, as her mom want her to be liked and have lots of friends. But I did not start speech therapy services for popularity reasons. I started them because Addie loves to talk and has a huge vocabulary and I want people to be able to understand her, not just listen & nod politely. Even I, as the person who sees and listens to her most, have numerous times each day when she says a word and no matter how much she repeats herself I just can not understand it.
The first step was to go to Addie's pediatrician. She talked with me about my concerns then showed Addie some flash cards and had her say what she saw in the pictures. The pediatrician said it was clear that Addie was doing consonant blurring and that she needed services for sure, but that it should be an "easy fix". So she said my next step should be calling the school district to get her evaluated.
Once kids turn 3 year old, there are free services available to them through the school district. Or there are hypothetically. The truth is they can only take a small percentage of kids: the kids who most desperately need it and are incredibly difficult to understand. Addie does not fit that. Then again, they never listened to her, they just asked me questions. And we all know that self report can be very flawed. So now that she has been evaluated by a private clinic, I need to call the school district back and push to have them evaluate her based on their findings.
After the lady from the school district talked to me, I was just going to let things be. She made it sound like Addie would attain these sounds as she got older and her muscle tone improved. She answered my questions and gave me some advice on how to gently help Addie with the consonant blurring. So I felt good after that call: hooray! my child is fine, she does not need special services, just wait and let her develop. But the more I thought about it, the less satisfied with that I was. The people who know her and see her daily have a hard time understanding her some of the time, the people who don't see her often can have a really hard time understanding her, her pediatrician and preschool teacher feel she needs services. So why was I paying most attention to the "expert" who never even listened to her?
Come to find out, our insurance covers speech therapy up to a certain dollar amount each year as long as the kid is under 5. So that gave me a new option: private services. I scheduled a playdate with Addie & Etta's friend Maya because her mom Jamie has a degree in speech therapy from UW. I figured she could listen to Addie and either calm my fears and tell me that I had nothing to worry about and Addie would grow into (and out-of) her speech issues, or she would suggest that I pursue services (and that would calm me as well because I would have yet another voice encouraging me to advocate for my child). And the later was the case. Jamie graciously gave me some referrals and some reassurance.
I did a little research and found a place in Wallingford that accepts our insurance and had a time slot that works for us. Addie was evaluated in the beginning of May and has been going for half an hour once a week. She loves it! She looks forward to it, she practices her homework during the week, she works hard during her sessions and she even has fun! We have not yet gotten the first insurance statement for it so I am curious how the charges work out. I am not sure how long she will be in services, but here are her therapy goals:
#1-Addie will independently produce /s/ and s-blends in all word positions at conversation level in 90% of opportunities across two sessions.
#2-Addie will independently include final consonants at sentence level in 90% of opportunities across two sessions.
#3-Addie will independently produce /r, l/ in all word positions at conversation level in 80% of opportunities across two sessions.
#4-Addie will independently use the appropriate form of is, are, have and has at conversation level in 80% of opportunities across two sessions.
#5-Addie will independently use appropriate pronouns and possessive pronouns at conversation level in 80% of opportunities across two sessions.
I know that goals 4 and 5 seem like more of a grammar issue than a speech issue and it may seem silly to have an expert teach her things that she should be able to learn from me. But (and forgive me for my clunky explanation of this) her therapist thinks that it is not that Addie does not know the rules, but that she has kind of created her own (and this is part of the reason why it is so good to get her services now before these become any more entrenched). So her mouth is used to saying things a certain way and it is simply easier for her to keep saying them that incorrect way. Learning to articulate difficult sounds like /l/ requires using the muscles of the mouth a certain way and practicing that more and more creates new neural pathways until it is easy for her. It is the same with saying "I" instead of "me", it takes practice for her to make it a habit and so right now it is just easier for her to keep doing it the incorrect way. Another example: since she can not make the /th/ sound, she drops it from words: so "that" becomes "at". This makes it difficult for people to understand her. So we are working on her using a different sound as a placeholder so her brain gets used to there being a sound there and it will be easier to replace the incorrect sound once she is able to make the /the/ sound. ("vat" sounds closer to "that" and will help her be understood until she can clearly say "that")
I like these goals because they are so tangible. But when I look at them realistically I know it will take months before we reach any of them. She does good with her homework sheets: for example they have her practice s-blends (stove, store, storm) but she does not produce those sounds at conversation level at all, it is only when looking at her specific homework words.
So there you go. Addie is in therapy and we are all happy about it :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment