Today I took Youngling to his very first Speech Therapy session and I am extremely disgruntled.
I found the therapist, who would be helping Youngling with his speech, to be rather condescending and didn't want to listen to anything I said about my son. When she asked about the sign language Youngling uses when he cant voice his opinion or question etc. I said I never took him to baby sign as I didn't particularly agree with it at the time. Now this is only MY opinion and I do not believe Baby Sign to be a useless tool or anything of the sort. Myself and Doo just felt it wasn't right for us and our Youngling. After all back in the 80's when we were born we weren't taken to baby signing classes.
Of course one may argue the same about Speech Therapy then. But according to this therapist Younglings Speech Therapy 'issue' is a Disorder. Puzzled I asked her to expand on her 'diagnoses' and so she went on to say there are several 'disorders' relating to childrens problem with speech and it is all to do with their brain development, or lack thereof.
This expert then went on to say that because she was having to explain things to myself that she couldn't give my son a full on assessment, which was required in order to officially diagnoses his said disorder. This made me feel awful and angry at the same time as I wasn't asked to sit quietly twiddling my thumbs.
Luckily my mum was there as I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all. I kept returning my thinking to Doo and how he should have been there to hear it all for himself. Of course one thing leads to another as always with my thought process. I then got upset and angry about Doo and how we let things get this bad, then I felt guilty as I've genuinely been having such a great time with Boog and how I wished they were both a little more like one another, then I felt sad about what Boog had said about not having more children. A little nauseous my attention then swirled back round to Youngling and I just wanted to hold him and never let him go.
I may be over reacting, and feel free to knock me down a peg or two, but when someone insists that there is a problem with your child but doesn't explain themselves or the potential problems and resolutions one is bound to get a bit upset.
Have you had to take your Youngling to Speech Therapy? Have they been diagnosed as disordered? I would really appreciate hearing from you with your stories and advice.
Until then I have a ton of reading and sign language to learn.
Take care
Kate
xx
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6 comments:
hi i just saw this over on the britmums site, i had just posted my blog about speech therapy and makaton. my youngest is 2 and a half and is behind on his speech. the therapist came to our house first to see him in his comfortable environment. as i go to college my partner has been to all the therapy and makaton sessions so i dont know how well they are really run. for xmas he also got some flash cards with pictures, letters and words on and he enjoys looking at them. he has come on a lot of the last week or so. we havent been told he has a disorder just that his sounds are jumbled up and he maybe 4 before it starts to correct itself.
16 January 2012 19:59your experience sounded awful, can you complain to someone and see another professional? although going to makaton was a choice its down to you if you agree with it and take part, your decision has to be respected by them. hope it all works out.
16 January 2012 20:21
i was a playworker too before having kids and a nursery nurse before that. has your son had a hearing test to rule out deafness? my boy had numerous hearing tests until he was 2 and failed everyone but passed the last one
17 January 2012 11:27I don't know if this will help you or not, but my son had delayed speech. He was my first and I just didn't realize how delayed he was until someone pointed it out. I had him tested by our Early Intervention Services and he qualified for their services. He was 20 months old at the time we had him tested and he tested at 6-7 months for receptive and 9 months for expressive. He was really behind. They did interact with him, but I was an integral part of the process. They asked me questions and then tested for themselves. They determined that his was simply a delay (never determined why) and instead of speech therapy, we received a special education teacher that would come to our house once a week and work with him on his speech. She was WONDERFUL- she actually preferred that I was part of the process. She wanted me to learn the games she was playing so that I could reinforce it myself. She was always playing with him, yet, informing me what was going on and what should be happening. By the time he was 3 (and the point at which they quit giving services), he tested out of the program. If he had still had a delay, we would have had to have our school district take over the services at3- and as part of the process, we had to take him to the school to be tested by them. They were flabbergasted that he had ever had a delay at all he was doing so well. And now, he is 8, and is in the enrichment (gifted) program.
17 January 2012 14:39Good luck- it is hard when someone tells you there is something "wrong" with your child and you feel helpless to do anything about it.
18 January 2012 23:00
Thank you for your support. I have recently spoken to a friend who knows of Younglings therapist and said she isn't surprised that we didn't 'click'. So not feeling too bad about it at the mo ;-) xx
18 January 2012 23:07
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