Henry's speech getting worse
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| Wed, 06-13-2007 - 11:25pm |
Henry's speech is becoming more and more stilted and halting. It is a little painful to listen to him sometimes. Glen (who never notices anything like that) mentioned Henry's speech problems to me the other day.
I already have plans to write his principal a letter requesting an evaluation for him to get special services, plus a request to get him the right kind of teacher. I started thinking that maybe he needs a speech therapist this summer.
I wasn't sure how to discuss this issue with Henry, but I finally did. Mark was napping, and I told Henry I wanted to rest for a little while. I gave him several options of things to do while I rested, but he said he wanted to rest with me. While we were in my room, I asked him if he was having trouble with his talking. He asked for clarification, and I told him I had noticed that sometimes it took him a long time to say stuff.
I asked if his talking was bothering him, or if anything was bothering him, and he said no.
But then he asked me what we could do if it was bothering him. I told him that there were teachers who could help with talking--like the speech teacher at his school (who we saw at Target the other day). I asked him if he wanted me to find him a speech teacher to help him this summer or if he wanted to wait until school started back.
He said that his talking wasn't bothering him, and he did not want to go to a speech teacher right now.
I told him that if he would "sing" what he wanted to say or say it in a sing-songy way, then the words would come out better. He didn't say anything to that, but hours later, he tried it. He likes to process stuff for a while, I guess.
I'm wondering if being out of school for summer vacation is affecting his speech. Also, he had similar issues at the beginning of Kindergarten, but by the time the speech teacher evaluated him, he was back to talking fine. So I'm hoping that perhaps it's just a phase.

Hi Robin,
Well one thing I have noticed about Chris, is you can't tell he has a speech problem unless he's talking about alot of stuff, or trying to pull a bunch of information out of his head at one time. Simple sentences you can't tell (like your hubby, mine is the same way) You have to really listen and pay attention for it. Chris had speech in 3rd to 4th grade for articulation, but the speech therapist never noticed anything else.
But I do remember asking his kindy teacher if she thought he stuttered. I know he doesn't, but I couldn't figure out why I thought his speech sounded so different than other kids. He has always sounded different, but I could never put my finger on it.
Robin, did he talk late like Chris? I wonder if I never picked it up because all kids sound a little off when they start talking with sounds and such. I just never thought anything of it until he was much older because I was so used to it.
Did you ever look up cluttering? Its a new term and falls under Stammering, even thou Chris doesn't stammer.
I have never asked Chris how he felt about it, but maybe I should. His school tested him out as normal for pragmatic speech, but I questioned it, so they are going to do more testing this summer.
Maybe this is a good time to do so for him.
Edited to say that from what I read, cluttering is often missed by speech therapists, because speech therapists don't usually get into big convo's. Its usually a one word thing at a time, so they miss it.
Lainie