In my last entry I mentioned how we went in for juniors beginning of the year IEP and that he had developed a Sutter. Apparently around age 4 this is normal and not worrisome unless the child does not improve within 6 months. And as our luck would have it, no improvement was made. So another goal was added to Juniors IEP.
His speech pathologist Mrs R.'s findings were this:
"Brandon exhibits moderate to severe dysfluency of speech. The dysfluencies are characterized by initial sound repetitions and blocks accompanied by physical tension".
Basically when Junior speaks he repeats the begging sound like ," B-b-b-b-ut" and blocks are when he can’t "spit" the word out, that is accompanied by physical tension, his whole body tenses up.
So as part of his IEP they started working on "soft touches". Soft touches is a tool used to help Junior recognize this blocks and physical tensions, and by him touching his throat or cheek, calm himself enough to speak the work with no dysfluencies. And I must say, it works. So all year long they worked on his speech and his stuttering with much improvement.
Over that summer Junior regressed a little bit, but as soon as school started up, and he was forced to speak in front of his kindergarten class and with more friends he got better.
One thing that bothers me about his stutter is that people think because he stutters that something is wrong with him. That his intellectual ability is not what it should be. Well let me say this, people who stutter is just that, people who stutter. They are as smart as any other person, they just have difficulty speaking. I met a Mr. M the other day, the new receptionist at the day care my other two boys goto, and he asked Junior how he was doing. Of course Junior spoke and had his disfluencies and I told Junior to slow down, take a deep breath and then continue when he got stuck, and once the conversation was over we walked away to get his brothers from their class rooms, I didn’t think twice about it. On our way out, Mr. M stopped us and pulled us aside and quietly spoke to me about how until he reached the age of 12 he stuttered horribly. No one could understand what he said; he struggled in school but that he overcame it. With the support from his mother, who encouraged him and invested time in him, he overcame it. I almost cried, and was so thankful he told me his story, because it means Junior can overcome too.
My next entry will of Juniors ADHD, and that one is a doosie.
Rib
