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By Sharron McClurkin Reece

Imagine the feeling I had when my beautiful two-year-old was not saying one word, only vowel sounds! Even though she had attended a Montessori toddler program before two years of age, the natural stimulation of friends and other people's language did not help her enough. Adults thought she was shy, dumb, strange, or too tied to mother's apron strings. One friend said that I was speaking too much for her. She even began making up her own sign pantomime language in order to communicate. For example, when she wanted to put on some play lipstick, she wiggled her fingers as though they were sticking together! Through the encouragement of my mother, we began speech therapy at the age of two. The therapist used toys, clay and other materials to invite my daughter to begin making sounds. At home, she and I played with sandpaper letters and phonetic sounds. She could point to most of them before she could even speak. Speech therapy was expensive and an additional item to add to my busy life, but it was one of the most important things I ever did.

My daughter was diagnosed with apraxia, or an inability to repeat the sounds accurately which she heard. Something was not wired quite right between the brain and the hearing/speaking apparatus. Although it is true that she had tubes put into her ears at one year of age, this was not the entire problem.

Almost exactly on her third birthday, she began to speak in sentences. Many words, however, were unintelligible, even to me. When I could not understand her, she willingly drew the item, such as “sponge”, by making a rectangle with dots. The children at school exclaimed, “She can talk!” and tried hard to understand her. Perhaps her year of inability to communicate through language, as is the norm at two, contributed to her reluctance to socialize. But we waited, prayed, and continued the speech therapy.

At 5 ½ she communicates fully with confidence. Her therapist commented, “She has a lot to say!” (Imagine the frustration if she couldn't say it!) She is working this month on “d”, “t”, and “sh.” In order to overcome the habits she has acquired by the ripe of age of five, we must spend ten minutes each day playing speech games. This is the only way to help her mechanically force herself to speak the sounds she cannot hear. In the next months will come “th”, “yuh,” and a few other sounds. These are the only problem sounds left. Last week when she and her grandmother were heading to the shopping mall, she asked “Grandma, can you tell me if you hear me say a sound wrong, and tell me how to say it? Next month I'm going to work on “luh” (yuh).”

When I remember the subtle fear we had that she would never speak, I am so grateful for the choice of speech therapy that we made. Her current speech therapist told me last week that 1 ½ is not too early to begin, but we waited until two. She also said that my daughter is fortunate that she had a Montessori mother and grandmother who knew what to do for her. When I have a child who is having speech difficulties, in my Montessori classroom, I recommend an evaluation as soon as possible. Quite frequently, however, the child's pediatrician will not give a referral, (a pediatrician's usual view is to wait), in the hopes that the child will overcome the problem herself. But the social and emotional impact upon the child is too great to wait. Without language the child cannot be fully human. She cannot experience the great adventure of human communication. Frustration and anger may result. The longer the parent waits, the more difficult is the retraining and changing from old speech habits. The parent must insist on a referral for the sake of their child! Try removing some phrases in your speech, or some part of your accent, and you will discover just how hard it is to change your speech after the early formative period.