Speech and Occupation Therapy (OT)

S.,

I think you are RIGHT to question these expectations. Part of growing up is reaching certain milestones as we mature. Mature being a key word here. They can't expect a 4 yr old to have the maturity of an 8 yr old. God designed 4 yr olds to learn through FREE EXPLORATION not constraint and structure. They say he has problems "staying on task"...Just what is that suppose to mean with a 4 yr old? It sounds like something you would see in an adult employee work review!!!! That is not child driven learning- I dont care what they say. and "attention span problems" ..what the heck.... no HEALTHY 4 yr old boy is going to appreciate being cajoled and pushed into a little conformity box. It is unnatural, sad and cruel. It's the extremely rare boy indeed that can handle sitting without fidgeting in a circle on the floor. It's like taking a baby bird, and instead of teaching them to fly out of the nest, teaching them to hunt like a bear.

There is a reason school age attendance traditionally started at 6 years old. It was because, after many decades of PROVEN SUCCESS, they found that age to be mature enough and mentally READY for the 'three R's'- reading, writing, and arithmatic. That was at the core of schooling a child. Not green recycling, sight reading, fuzzy math, immoral sexualization and all the other garbage they have since thrown in to water down academics.

The progressive movement does not pursuede compulsory school attendance to a younger age for accademic reasons. It's so they can push conformity to certain beliefs, values and morals,to squelch independant thinking and free thought.

I have home schooled three children, including a boy, and I would never expect a child that young (4.5) to write. They might be able to write their name in manuscript letters, and that is one thing. Maybe trace letters with thier fingers in a salt box.Formal writing lessons is another.

To start formal writing lessons, I have consistently found that 5 and a half to six is more the target range, with some kids having to wait even another 6 months after that. Just 6 months can make the difference between success and failure/fustration.

Hi S., I am a speech therapist and what some are saying is true...Its better to get the evaluations and know now, then to wait and wish you didn't. If you do get an eval, services for him will be free thru your school district, if you want him to continue where he is....depending on where you live, you can apply for cheaper services at Cal State University East Bay...they have a clinic there for students to work with him, who have been trained, but just need hours.

My younger son has the same problems, and I was very hesitant to accept the teachers' assessment, too, because my son is very bright, despite his speech problems. However, it became clearer and clearer as he got older that they were right, and that the speech problems were a large part of my son's learning disabilities.

My son's expressive and receptive speech disorder manifests itself in that he often does not hear what is being said to him, because he has stopped listening in order to decode one or two words from what is being said. For example, if I said to him, "Your uncle is thinking about moving to Hawaii," he might hear only "Uncle," and he would respond by asking "Is Uncle Stace coming over?"; or he might hear only "Hawaii," and respond by asking "We're going to Hawaii?"

Then, in expressing himself, he often forgets that his listener doesn't have all the information he has on a topic. He will start a story about, for example, a kid who has learned a new skateboard trick, and he will just say something like "Joe ollied on Friday; it was pretty amazing," although you have no idea who Joe is, or what "ollied" means, or that it happened at school, or that it relates to skateboarding.

I finally managed to get him into a free speech therapy program that is offered in Oakland, at the Scottish Rite Center for Childhood Speech and Language. He was in that program for three years, and he has greatly improved as a result of it, but he still has serious learning problems. He has been receiving special education services (including speech therapy at school, and after-school tutoring) for at least part of the school day for the past five years, although, of course, the school does not have the funds or the personnel to really help very much.

The point of all this is, your child's teachers probably have more experience in recognizing this kind of disability than you do. You should immediately ask the school district to have him assessed by the district speech therapist, and if they find speech and language problems, to initiate an IEP for your son. If he does have the same kind of problem my son has, I hope you can find private speech therapy for him also, because although legally the school is supposed to help with problems like this, practically speaking, they can't afford to do very much. I wish you the best of luck.

Ok... I have 4 y/o twin boys. Their speech was delayed and they also had some sensory issues that required some OT.

The original issue was speech. I had them evaluated at age 3 by the county, which was wonderful (napa county). They were very thorough, and covered all areas of development. Honestly, I think EVERY child should have this evaluation. It would allow all strengths and weaknesses to be addressed. Allowing for faster advancement in some areas, and more attn. in others.

My boys also went to a Montessori for their first half of their first preschool year. I LOVED the school. I LOVED the teachers. My children were not excelling at all. It was awful. I was constantly told they could not stay on task. One of them had NO problem sitting down with playdo for an hour at a time. But if he wasn't interested... FORGET IT! The direction of the school prevented them from excelling at all. I asked all our therapists to please attend class (they should have to evaluate at some point regardless.), and they were are not very pleased. The speech teacher said it was too quiet, not enough speech happening among the students to stimulate my children to speak. A child that can not communicate is an angry little person! Or for my children to even to look to models. Then we got to the tasks that the children did. A child is free to select his her task, and play with it. Well... the problem that evolved was that my boys didn't "do it right." One would get out a really cool set of blocks, that rang. A blue set and a red set. The correct task is to ring the blue one and find the red one that sounds the same. (great right?) Well, one of my guys wanted to use them to build a tower. Apparently, he had a really intricate tower built when he was redirected to the correct usage. Which he wasn't interested in, so he put them away. Then he went to the "reading area", and proceeded to wrap himself up in the throw rugs and roll around. Which is a no no... they are for sitting on only. His OT, said she watched my children try to fulfill their sensory needs over and over again, and were constantly being re directed. This is ultimately cause for children to start acting out (mine hadn't YET), and total frustration... which then harbors in the end a hatred for school. A child that doesn't hold a crayon correctly, ultimately has a hard time writing, and taking notes, and writing reports... in the end a poor grip can influence how well a child performs, and can literally mean the difference in GPA's, colleges they qualify for, jobs they get... It's crazy, but it can really boil down to that...

So... don't feel bad! sounds like you have some teachers that are identifying problems that your child is experiencing... Your perfectly right wanting him to just be a rambunctious little boy. But they are also right in getting him all the assistance he needs to perform well.

I ended up taking my boys out of the school that I adored. And put them in another that was a PLAY environment. That I feel has saved our lives! Within 3 months their speech improved YEARS worth. They will have another year of therapy and we expect they will completely on target for kindergarten. Their fine motor skills are completely age appropriate NOW. Their gross motor skills... well they have always been freakishly advanced!

The most important thing I think I can stress is. You already KNOW that you want to do everything right for your child. And you have an idea how to do that. But the fact is, if you stay married to your ideas, you might miss out on what's really right for your child. It was really hard to let that school go. It was everything I wanted for my kids. Only is just didn't work for them. Which in the end... would have been everything I DIDN'T want for them...

Let us know how the eval. goes!

Private schools tend to have much higher expectations than public schools. You shouldn't think there is anything really "wrong" with your son, if you don't notice anything yourself. They are probably just expecting him to develop at the same rate as some of the other kids--but every child has his own development schedule. Your description of your son sounds pretty normal for a 4 yo boy to me, but go ahead with your appointment, and see what the expert says about his language, etc.
If you can AFFORD the extra help for him, it can't hurt him, and could be of benefit to him, socially and academically, in the long run. He may not really need it, but some kids really thrive with some 1:1 attention and help. if you can't afford it, and/or you think it is ridiculous, then don't worry about it--remember you are paying them, and they are providing a service for you, not the other way around.
BTW my kids are all in public school, but one of them went to a private preschool and liked it a lot (probably the extra attention).

My son is almost 3-1/2 years old and started speech therapy at a little over 2. His pediatrician asked at his 2 year visit how many words he was speaking and he really wasn't speaking any. The regional center in our area (Valley Mountain Regional Center) came to our home to do an assessment on him. We were also seen by an Occupational Therapist who was very insightful in different areas. He started with an Early Childhood Development Specialist once per week, had an evaluation again, and then was also seen by a Speech & Language Pathologist once per week until he was 3. We then had an IEP (Individual Education Plan) with the school district in which we live and agreed that a day class was best for him. He is now in a Language Emphasis class at the elemntary school close to our home and has done fabulous!
I don't know anything about the montessori schools so I can't help you there but I know that all the assessment, evaluations, etc that we received from the regional center were extremely, extremely helpful and encouraging.
I hope all works out for the best for your son!