Speech Therapy Has Changed My Daughter’s Life For The Better

At the end of June, I shared my story about how many people misunderstand my daughter Alicia because she’s introverted. It was amazing hearing from many other parents, some whose children were introverted like mine, and some whose children had been in need of early intervention for a variety of reasons. A common thread in these comments, and something I had already been thinking about, was the possibility of speech therapy. At the time, many of Alicia’s speech sounds weren’t right – “gwocks” instead of “blocks”, “pour” instead of “four.” And it seemed to me that this was making her harder to understand than many other three-year-olds.

I couldn’t judge by the example of her older brother, who is among the most verbal kids around. (Sometimes that’s a blessing, sometimes that’s a curse!) Ben always wants to tell everyone about everything all the time – and how do you talk about Skylanders or dragons or pirates if the people around you can’t understand what you’re saying? At Alicia’s age, Ben was talking like some five year olds; he was NOT the example to use of typical language development.

Meanwhile, Alicia’s talk was almost all self-directed. She would tell incredible stories – but only to herself, which meant there was never a need for her to clarify what she was saying. I kept wondering if her mispronunciations were the result of a lack of practice, or if there was something else going on. So I was pleased that a referral for a speech evaluation came out of her screening, even if I anticipated a lengthy wait before we’d get the phone call.

The first step was an audiology appointment to ensure her hearing was normal. As I had expected, that all checked out. And then, to my great surprise, I got a call from the local speech program – with people away over the summer, we had the opportunity to come in for an evaluation in mid-July. Was I interested? You bet! And I am so glad we were able to accept.

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