Speech Therapy?

I cannot believe it.  Ace will be 3 years old in 6 days!

At three years old there is the three year check up with the doctor…

Ace has always been small for his age, 4th to 5th percentile for his weight, but it looks like he is making some progress!  He was in the 25th percentile this time!

Ace  has entered the “parrot stage” and that leads to some interesting moments in our household.  😀  Special thanks goes out to his uncle Mike and Jason for teaching him to chant “Whitey Tighteys!  Whitey Tighteys!”…or more recently….”JEEEEESSSSSUUUSSSSSSS!!!!”

Ace is a jibber-jabberrer.  Constantly talking about who knows what.  It is mostly repeating what he hears on his cartoons, or his more recent past time…his Sesame Street game on the “COMPUUUUUTER”.

Ace is smart.  I would have to say quite a bit smarter than the average soon to be 3 year old…but he gets that honest.  😀  Just kidding…

No really… he knows all of his letters, upper and lower case…all of his numbers up to 20…the names of almost any animal that can be found in one of his books…the sounds that all of these animals make…and just about every inanimate object in our house…including the refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer…you name it, he can tell you what it is.  The names of all the characters in the cartoons he watches…hell, he can even sing along with many of the songs on the radio..!

He knows how things work, and if he doesn’t he will play with them until he does. Ever see a kid roll his cars over to check that the wheels spin freely before playing with it?  Well, then you have never seen Ace.  😀

Ever seen a soon to be three year old hop up to the laptop, close all of the open programs, save your work if you left it open, then open a game for him to play?  Well, then you have never seen Ace.  😀

But there is one thing that concerns his doctor (and me and Momma too a little bit).  He has never asked for anything.  Ever! If he is thirsty, he might bring you his empty cup, but he has never verbally asked.

If he is tired, he may grab your hand and pull you upstairs to his bedroom.  But not once has he said “Bedtime!”

If I point to a picture of  Momma and I, he will call us Momma and Daddy.  If I say, “Go get your Momma!”, he will run to her.  But, he never says “Mommy come here.” or “Daddy, I’m hungry”

He is very self sufficient.  If he wants something, and can do it himself…he does.  If he can’t do it himself…he finds  some way to communicate to us what he wants.

I guess that asking for things is a very important step in the learning process. And somehow Ace is behind in that aspect according to all of the “experts”.

So, we get to go see a speech therapist for a consult just to make sure that Ace is on track.

Which, I guess is a good thing.  If he does need help learning in some areas, it would definitely be better to know now, rather than when he starts Kindergarten in a few years.

Have you ever had to take your children to a speech therapist?  What do they do there?  What can we expect?  Please share your stories in the comments!

3 Comments

  1. cathy says:

    70 views and no comments! Does that mean no one understands speech therapy or they can’t believe someone with a quiet child would want to hear all that noise. He’ll talk when he wants to, in the mean time he’ll drag you by the hand and show you what he wants,speech therapy for Ace will be telling everyone around him to make him use his words and I just don’t see that happening.You know Grandma can’t stand to make him cry.

  2. Christian says:

    As a public school teacher I know that each child is different and develop their language skills at different times. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. However, having experience with speech therapists, I can say that it can’t hurt. I would just make sure that it’s a pressure-free environment.

  3. Hi i agree with christian about going can’t hurst, My son who is now 23 had problems with his hearing when he was abut the same age as your boy. This meant that he was unable to pick how words were sounded etc. we were referred to a speech therapist, where he received therapy for a couple of years. Now many years on my son has better pronunciation than the rest of the family he, won a academic scholarship to the USA where he was top of his university class in presenting and debating and is now just starting a high flying job. I guess what i am trying to say, is in a world where impression means a lot, while your little boy may not really need speech therapy , if it is recommended it wont do any harm and in the end will only improve his speech and overall development which should only be beneficial. And like in Christian post alluded to it is important that the child does not feel pressured or is not pulled up in a negative fashion if words are pronounced , however only you can tell what the environment is like and you as a parent will instinctively know if it is right for your son or not.

    All the best with this matter.

    Jean-Francois Rodrigues http://www.jfrodrigues.co.uk
    http://jeanfrancoisrodrigues.wordpress.com

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