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Willow 08:45 AM 05-29-2013
One of my new kiddos started last week. She just turned 5 and is incredibly sweet, kind and polite, but unfortunately I'm struggling to communicate with her.
She definitely struggles with articulation and pronunciation (super delayed in that area for her age), add to that she has a severe stuttering problem. At interview time when I met her she was very shy and hardly spoke so I didn't grasp the magnitude of the issue when mom described it. Now that she's warmed up and is talking a lot more it's great, but I can't understand hardly a word she says!
Yesterday for example she was trying to explain something about a "piwwor." Over and over she said the word -"Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Piwwor" "M..M..m..m...me got's a..a..a...a...a..a a Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi...Piwwor" sometimes so hard she'd squint her eyes with emphasis on the "M" "a" and "P" sound. When I couldn't sort it out she tried to describe it and gesture to express the shape and size....eventually got so frustrated, the stuttering worsening the longer she was unable to sort it out (literally 5-10 repeats for every single word) that she gave up and went back to playing. Come to find out she was trying to tell me about her special pillow at home, mom described it as her lovey and she was trying to share that with me. Broke my heart I couldn't figure it out and it caused her so much stress
Mom sounds like she's on top of the issue so no worries there. Kiddo is receiving services through school on top of pre-k and it sounds like she will be in a special ed type class year round to continually address the issue, but it's definitely one I haven't encountered before.
I have a lot of experience with much of what speech therapy entails as far as annunciation, articulation and pronunciation goes but not specifically in regards to stuttering. Anyone have any insight as to what causes it? Anything I can do here to help her? My instincts lead me to believe I should prompt her to slooooow down, but I'm not sure if that could make it worse. Do I ignore it and muddle through the best I can? Address it and see if I can help her work through the word letter by letter? Ask her to just keep repeat?
I know some of this falls on a learning curve and will come in time but on a scale of 1-10 I'd call her language a solid 9 as far as severity goes and I definitely feel out of my league.
Any insight would be much appreciated!
She definitely struggles with articulation and pronunciation (super delayed in that area for her age), add to that she has a severe stuttering problem. At interview time when I met her she was very shy and hardly spoke so I didn't grasp the magnitude of the issue when mom described it. Now that she's warmed up and is talking a lot more it's great, but I can't understand hardly a word she says!
Yesterday for example she was trying to explain something about a "piwwor." Over and over she said the word -"Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Piwwor" "M..M..m..m...me got's a..a..a...a...a..a a Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi..Pi...Piwwor" sometimes so hard she'd squint her eyes with emphasis on the "M" "a" and "P" sound. When I couldn't sort it out she tried to describe it and gesture to express the shape and size....eventually got so frustrated, the stuttering worsening the longer she was unable to sort it out (literally 5-10 repeats for every single word) that she gave up and went back to playing. Come to find out she was trying to tell me about her special pillow at home, mom described it as her lovey and she was trying to share that with me. Broke my heart I couldn't figure it out and it caused her so much stress
Mom sounds like she's on top of the issue so no worries there. Kiddo is receiving services through school on top of pre-k and it sounds like she will be in a special ed type class year round to continually address the issue, but it's definitely one I haven't encountered before.
I have a lot of experience with much of what speech therapy entails as far as annunciation, articulation and pronunciation goes but not specifically in regards to stuttering. Anyone have any insight as to what causes it? Anything I can do here to help her? My instincts lead me to believe I should prompt her to slooooow down, but I'm not sure if that could make it worse. Do I ignore it and muddle through the best I can? Address it and see if I can help her work through the word letter by letter? Ask her to just keep repeat?
I know some of this falls on a learning curve and will come in time but on a scale of 1-10 I'd call her language a solid 9 as far as severity goes and I definitely feel out of my league.
Any insight would be much appreciated!