That Darn 'R'!

 

If you know my boy Chad you'll have already heard that he speaks with a speech impediment.  He's had life long issues with his speech all the way from when he was a wee thing.  He had chronic ear infections in his toddler years at a time when proper hearing is vital for picking up proper speech, he was a very late talker and then when he did talk it was a mess.  We had two years of weekly speech therapy sessions, plus attended a speech course through the health unit  After Chad was five he was discharged from the 'free' speech therapy program.  He spoke pretty well by this point but still retained that 'Boston accent' that was kinda cute.  Now that he's in grade 6 it's no longer cute and I fear it won't be long before he starts getting teased.  Kids regularly ask him about his 'accent' and Chad was starting to become rather self-conscious.  Private speech therapy is atrociously expensive and our benefits aren't that great but we decided it was time to get some professional help. 

Today was our first session and we were greatly encouraged!  The speech therapist is a dear, caring lady who Chad felt very comfortable with.  A few observations from our consult today were:

-Chad can indeed make a perfect 'r' sound which is half the battle.  It just becomes an issue when the 'r' is not at the start of the word.  That is the problem that we specifically need to work on.
-Chad is motivated and willing to work hard to get tongue retrained to make the proper sounds
-Chad will only have to see the therapist once a month unless he's not making good progress
-the rest of Chad's speech is very good and he has excellent enunciation which she said was due to Chad's previous speech therapy
-this is a common issue and it can be resolved which is such good news because my child has the gift of gab!!!