Cat Got Your Tongue?

When we saw the pediatrician for Gabby and Nate's well visits last month, I was asked if I had any concerns about Gabriella's speech. I raised the point that while her vocabulary is excellent, she still has what I think of as toddler diction ('w' instead of 'r', etc.). This led to a referral to a speech therapist.

I knew that this might be an interesting experience, since Gabriella often clams up in front of new people, and this is doubly true if she knows that they are wanting to hear her speak. I went armed with a list of her common speech errors and we met with a nice lady who tried her very best to get Gabby to speak. We moved from the office into a play room, where we looked at wall murals and played with mega blocks. I did manage to get her to tell me the colors of the blocks she wanted in order for the therapist to overhear. After that, she did her best to even suppress a grin. The gal gave her an obviously girl doll and said something about it being a boy and then told her that the boy doll was a girl. Gabby sideways glanced at me, but didn't make a correction. When the woman asked for the boy, Gabby shrugged her shoulders and handed back the girl.

At the end of the session, with not one question of the assessment that the therapist had in hand completed, the therapist offered to either have us come back in or to write up a list of things to try at home, with us calling back in after six months if we don't see any improvement. I opted for the at home practice. She also told me that it's not uncommon for a child at this age to be working on those sounds too, so it's not a major concern at this point.

Tonight I thought I'd get the little gal to talk about the experience, hoping that if we talk about it some that it will help her in similar situations in the future. I asked cheerily, "Didn't you think that lady we talked to today was nice?"

Gabby regarded me cooly and in a totally deadpan manner answered, "I didn't talk to that lady."

Amen.