Speech Assessment

Max and Daniel went through speech assessments today at school.  A few months ago their teachers suggested that we pursue a speech assessment because they can be very difficult to understand, at times.

Max is the hardest, but he also has really good non-verbal skills to get his point across.  Some examples:

While Grandma and Boppy were babysitting, he requested a specific television program, something he called "GweeWatoh"  After repeating it a few times, Grandma asked Caroline what he was saying.  She repeated, "GweeWatoh", because that's what he was saying.  She can be very literal, and let's face it, nobody asked her what he MEANT.  Getting frustrated, Max stalked into the living room and returned with a Fisher Price Little People figure to illustrate his point - GREEN LANTERN!  "See, Gwamma? GweeWatoh!"  Of course!

Another night, after baths, he was crying and telling me he wanted "WEEYO".  "I wa wash weeyo."  We were getting out of the bath - what did he forget to wash?  I kept saying, "I'm sorry, honey, I don't know what you mean.  You have to find another way of telling me.  I'm sorry, I don't know what 'weeyo' is!"  And he looked at me with such disappointment!

"Mommy," he said, "Weeyo is a buhd.  He boo.  He wide on a dog wif spit."  And then it was all so clear!  He wanted to WATCH the movie RIO.  Rio, you see, is a BIRD.  He is BLUE.  And in a memorable scene at the end of the movie, he RIDES on a particularly spitty bulldog!  Aha!

For Daniel, there are more specific sounds he seems to have trouble with.  After he broke his arm in February and subsequently got his cast off, he somehow became terrified of climbing up and down the front steps of our house by himself and he insisted on being carried.  I thought it would only be a few times, so I didn't automatically scoop him up each time we came home.  And he would stand at the bottom of the stairs WAILING and imploring me, "NO! Mommy! You got to KIW me! You hap to KIW me!"  And then I'd have to try not to laugh because it sounded so much like, "You have to KILL me!"

I don't know when Caroline will be assessed, but her referral was really more a function of "if we're doing two, why not three?" so I'm not too worried about it.  The school district has until the beginning of July to get back in touch with me about what it all means, so I'm not going to worry about it too much right now.