My Child Needs Speech Therapy, What?
Posted by Heidi | Filed under Personal
I’d like to take a moment to commensurate with those parents struggling to teach their children how to speak clearly, and pronounce sounds correctly. This is Sam, my seven year old Star Wars fighter pilot in his Halloween costume last year. He has been struggling with his /r/ sounds for sometime now. Once in awhile I would check to see if he was stimulable, meaning I would check to see if he could say the /r/ sound correctly in imitation of me. After several trials I would give up and cross my fingers that he would correct the problem on his own, while I continued to help correct the articulation errors of my clients.
I observed that the speech of my clients was continually improving while Sam made no improvement with his /r/ sounds. It reaffirmed to me that doing something makes a difference, so I resolved to finally sit down and begin to work with him.
So we are currently working together on how to make the /r/ sound in isolation (all by itself). The progress is slow, but once in awhile I can get him to say it correctly and we both celebrate! I hope to update this post soon with a super-positive follow up. Here’s to patience and keeping the fingers crossed!
6 Responses to “My Child Needs Speech Therapy, What?”
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I am a licensed Speech Language Pathologist and have been working in this field for 10 years. I am also a mother to three fabulous kids who keep me busier than ever! I put together this blog to share some of the tips and tricks that have worked for me over the years in teaching kids to improve their speech and more effectively communicate. Thanks for reading and remember it takes time and patience with this stuff but it is so worth it!
thinking of you as you work with sam on his /r/ sound! hopefully he will be a good student for his mommy (i am sure it is a little different working in a mother/son relationship than with your typical clients.) would doing any of the oral motor exercises (chewy tube, straw hierarchy, etc…) help? just a thought that popped into my head as i read this. thanks again for your wonderful blog :)
Thanks Laura,
I appreciate the encouragement!
I truly understand! I’m a speech-language assistant working in a public elementary school. The kids I saw for /l/ this year made excellent progress, and my son, who didn’t get therapy but occasional reminders to use the /l/ sound when at home, is still having trouble. Not to mention his r, th, and frontal lisp….
I want to say thank you for having this site. My son has been receiving speech services since he was 2 and a half. He’ll be 5 in a couple weeks and thanks to some really great therapists he’s able to be understood about 95% of the time. This school year his therapist is working on his l, th, & ch sounds. So over the summer at home I’m going to be on your site often getting him ready for those sounds.
Thank you again!
Ugh, /r/ is the worst! My own Sam (almost 5) has a killer frontal lisp he developed (I think!) as the result of 3 years of drinking honey thick liquids. Because that kid did not lisp until he was 2 1/2. Good luck with it! I hope he’s a better client for you than my Sam is for me. He does not appreciate mommy speech therapy.
I just found your blog and LOVE it! I’m looking forward to coming back for regular updates. Good luck!