Speech Therapy

Several months ago, Dane's first grade teacher pulled me aside one day when I went to pick him up.

"I'm concerned about Dane," she began. "He has a lot of saliva when he says 's's' ."

"Yes?" I prompted.

"I think he has a speech problem and may need speech therapy. He needs to get checked out by a Speech Therapist."

Thus began a several-month escapade, which ended over the Christmas holidays with a screening by a Therapist. The verdict - Dane lateralizes. This means that, instead of forcing the air across his tongue and out his front teeth when he makes certain sounds, he rolls his tongue over top of itself and forces the air out the sides of his mouth, resulting in a saliva-y s, x, k, and z. The Therapist placed her forefinger in front of her lips, as if she were making a "shush" gesture and told Dane to feel the air on his finger when he said the letter "s". Dane immediately followed suit and she told me that if I had him practice this for 5 minutes a day, he'd have the problem corrected in no time.

She said, however, that Daelyn had several speech problems and needed an Evaluation. Apparently, the public school system has speech therapists and, even though we don't attend public schools, we pay taxes and have a right to their services. She told me to contact the Board of Education and arrange to have Daelyn evaluated. She said they don't take children younger than 3 but since Daelyn would soon be 4, we ought to start right away and get a good foundation laid before he starts Kindergarten.

On Monday of this week, I began the process of trying to contact the correct person. Luckily, the director of the Public School Speech Therapy program is married to a guy that used to work with my husband, Don, and we know each other. I left a message and she called me back within an hour.

"Patti," she asked, "it's not Dane with the speech problem, is it?" Suddenly, a memory flooded back. Last January, exactly a year ago, we were at a Family After-Christmas Party with Don's previous work group that they were in attendance at, also. We sat together and Susie visited at length with the children. Before we left the Party, she told me that Dane had some speech issues that would most likely resolve themselves with age. She also mentioned that we'd have to watch Daelyn. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about and nodded politely, oblivious to the fact that she was a Speech Therapist. There was a lot of background noise and I couldn't hear her well and just assumed I had misunderstood what she said. Now, this whole conversation made perfect sense. While visiting with my children at the Party, she had reverted into "work mode" and had been evaluating my children's speech patterns. Wish I had known then what I know now. I would have taken huge advantage of this social contact.

The really funny thing was that she remembered the whole conversation and was concerned that her evaluation of Dane had been incorrect. I was amazed with her recall and quickly reassured her that Dane's little minor issue had been resolved, and that Daelyn was the culprit at present. She told me that she would contact the person responsible for evaluations and have her call me within the week. She added that if I didn't hear from this other woman by the end of the week, to call her back and she'd take care of it. How refreshing to "KNOW SOMEBODY". It's been a long time. Back in my working days, I knew lots of somebody's and was able to pull lots of strings to get things done, but that's been 10 years ago, and all my somebody's are nobody's now.

Today, Daelyn and I spent time with my friend, Kelly, and her little guy, Kolbe. While the boys dressed in Spiderman pajamas and masks and ran around saving the world, Kelly and I drank Decaf coffee and visited. I told her about my Speech Therapy news. She told me the following story and gave me permission to use it in my Blog.

It seems that her sister had a child who didn't speak real clearly. Sometimes, however, we moms are the last to know. Her sister was so used to her child's speech patterns that she didn't even notice. Once, while on vacation, the mother and her son went to the hot tub by the pool. While they enjoyed the jets, they visited, chatting up a storm. There was another woman in the jacuzzi, also, who sat and listened for a while. When the Mom looked up and caught this other woman's eye, the woman commented, "Such a cute little boy. What language is that that he speaks?"

I dunno, but I think, if that were me, I would have said, "A rare dialect of the Punta Tribe from Sri Lanka." Kelly's sister, however, graciously explained that her child was speaking English.

I'm hoping to get Daelyn's therapy started soon so we can purge any Punta Tribe dialect and begin speaking English around here. After all, I'm not a linguist.