Speech Therapy Part 2

Ok, so a few weeks ago Riley had his second testing for his speech. This time it was one-on-one with a speech therapist at the elementary school he will go to one day. I got to sit in on it with him. All they had him do was look at a flip chart with pictures and name the pictures. He did so well! I am proud of the things he knows. He is such a smart little boy...just one that struggles with speech lol. So at the end of the test the lady said she would have to score it, but she could tell me he didn't pass without even scoring it. I chuckled. I wasn't surprised one bit. She said she would talk to the school psychologist and see how he did on his other test and then set up a meeting for us to go over all the results. Well we had that meeting this morning and it was definitely interesting. I had both kids with me and I was meeting with 3 other adults in a TINY room. So the 6 of us were crammed in there like sardines...good thing the weather was cool today or it could have been stinky! Haha, sorry for the tangent..anyway, the psychologist talked first and let me know he is below average for his age with self help but only because he isn't potty trained yet. Well, honestly, that was my decision not to potty train him because of the new baby and such. Anyway, it is a task I am going to tackle in the next week or so. Other than that he is fine. As for speech, we already knew he hadn't passed. The results were a little surprising though. Apparently he has a lisp...but it isn't the kind where he thrusts his tongue forward, so it isn't a big deal. However, the ONLY letters he can say in the beginning, middle, and end of a word without saying them wrong or omitting them are M, W, and H. THREE letters...that's it! I was kind of shocked, but for some reason it doesn't really upset me or anything. We originally had decided on this program called "Talking Time". It's a group setting and they do activities with other kids and then meet for a few minutes alone with the speech therapist and then the parents are taught things to do at home. However, when we went in today I mentioned that Riley had started stuttering again. He originally stuttered for like a month and a half and then stopped and then started again a few days ago. He does it pretty consistently. So I tried to get Riley to do it for them so she could see what I meant. At first he wouldn't but then he did and she said that is definitely a stutter and he probably doesn't qualify for talking time anymore because he doesn't just have an articulation issue, he also has a stutter. Sooooooooooooooo that means he will have to meet with her each week instead. Honestly, I think it might end up being a better situation for him anyway. So I'm not totally sure where we are going from here because the speech therapist has to meet with her supervisor now that things are changing. Either way, I just want him to get the help he needs! One thing the school psychologist did say was that Riley has really good cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor skills! I was happy about that! They gave him some blocks to play with while we were talking and he separated the different colors into piles and then stacked them. Apparently, that makes you smart :) I love my little man so much!!!!!!