We recently took Gabe to a speech pathologist to see if we could get him into speech therapy. He had difficulty making "l" and "r" sounds and we thought it would be beneficial if someone could work with him and teach him how to use his "new tongue".
The speech pathologist showed Gabe a bunch of outdated pictures of various object (seriously, that TV does look like a microwave). It was obvious he had some trouble with "l". However, he said the word Flag perfectly. We had never heard him say that word properly before. We were shocked. We also noticed he was making an "s" sound for "th" Thursday is Sursday, etc.. He showed no problems with r's. He now says garage instead of galauge.
The speech pathologist decided Gabe doesn't need therapy. He is within "normal" range and apparently most 5 year olds cannot say "th". She gave us some "l" and "th" words for Gabe to practice.
He normally does pretty good when we're sitting down and focusing on this work, but in regular speech I have to constantly remind him of the proper pronunciation.
The speech pathologist was nice. I was just hoping for a little more that "he'll be fine".
I should mention that it was very difficult to even find an available therapist. There were more than 50 speech therapists listed in our area, but most had a 3 month waiting list. We waited one month for a therapist a little farther away.
1 comment:
Besides his bigger issues, Sean has problems with "m" and "n." He says them as "b." Are you ready for bed? "Bo." Who am I? "Bobba."
The speech therapist showed us that "m" and "b" sounds look the same from outside the mouth but that you are doing something different with your tongue to make those sounds. Sean is learning to talk by watching us and can't see those minute differences that take place inside the mouth when we make certain sounds. He also doesn't process speech well enough to really hear the differences between me saying "momma" and him saying "bobba." This is going to take a lot of work for him.
But oddly enough he does okay with the sounds that most 5-year-olds have trouble with, like blended sounds and "L." Gabe will get those with more practice and more maturity.
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