Current Events > My daughter's school wants her to have sessions with a speech pathologist

(+) Yeah! (+)

Because shes not pronouncing some phonemes correctly.

She is six. She has also lost half her front teeth, because six year old.

That seems unfair. I'm not even sure I can pronounce phonemes correctly, and I'm 36

I did something like that around first grade for my ses, actually wish I had done a bit more... sometimes that shit can stick with you, I guess not everyone has that problem though.

Could she say them before she lost her teeth? Don't be defensive, it's better to fix these things early. Just an hour a day for a few months can make a massive difference.

I had massive speech problems as a kid and a speech therapist is the only reason I can halfway talk nowadays. So pretty much:

ChocoboMog123 posted...

Don't be defensive, it's better to fix these things early. Just an hour a day for a few months can make a massive difference.

That's around when I started speech therapy and I was in it until like 7th grade? Rs were my last hurtle. All I'm saying is, don't dismiss it just because of her age.

I had one for a few years in elementary that fixed my lisp. Super grateful for that.

This is normal according to my own school recollection.

It couldn't hurt, and you might regret not doing it in the long run.

It's up to you, you know your kidlet better then they do.

Teachers teach a lot of kids and they're often pretty good at picking up on issues like this. There's a lot of experience for them to compare to.

You don't lose anything but at least getting it checked by an expert.

My wife is a teacher and she has figured out when kids have had hearing or vision issues that impacted their learning. The amount of defensive parents who make up excuses so they don't need to do anything about it is really common and in the long run they weren't the ones who ended up being right. The earlier the better with stuff like this.

I am confused as to why you have a problem with this.

gunplagirl posted...

That's around when I started speech therapy and I was in it until like 7th grade? Rs were my last hurtle. All I'm saying is, don't dismiss it just because of her age.

Heh, Rs were my bane too. One the rare occasion I struggle to enunciate a word today, its usually because it has hard rs in back-to-back syllables. Never quite fixed that bug.
And, of course, my brain is far more nimble and than my tongue is or ever will be.

I also speak softly, but thats partly because Ive always hated my voice. Its getting better though.

Edit: But yeah TC, your daughter might not have an issue, or she might. Theres no harm in her seeing a speech pathologist.

I still cant do a rolling R >_>

ChocoboMog123 posted...

Could she say them before she lost her teeth? Don't be defensive, it's better to fix these things early. Just an hour a day for a few months can make a massive difference.

She could definitely say them beforehand. If it was necessary, wed definitely be supportive of it, but in this case its entirely unnecessary and takes limited resources from kids who could actually need it.

Her teacher this year has had an interesting view of her capabilities.

End of last year, she was reading level 16 readers, and her old teacher was extending her with higher ones. Start of this year, her new teacher puts her on level 11 readers and tells us shes struggling at that level.

Ditto for maths. Meanwhile, at home she blitzes through her maths homework and the extension activities.

gunplagirl posted...

That's around when I started speech therapy and I was in it until like 7th grade? Rs were my last hurtle. All I'm saying is, don't dismiss it just because of her age.

Oh, definitely not. Were waiting for a speech pathology assessment appointment for my son. Now, he definitely needs support for a speech therapist. Its going to cost about 1K for the initial assessment, but its worth it.

Punished_Blinx posted...

Teachers teach a lot of kids and they're often pretty good at picking up on issues like this. There's a lot of experience for them to compare to.

You don't lose anything but at least getting it checked by an expert.

My wife is a teacher and she has figured out when kids have had hearing or vision issues that impacted their learning. The amount of defensive parents who make up excuses so they don't need to do anything about it is really common and in the long run they weren't the ones who ended up being right. The earlier the better with stuff like this.

I couldnt agree more. My wifes a teacher and I used to be a teacher.

Last year, we were entirely supportive of my daughters teachers judgements. Theyre the experts.

This year though, her teachers judgements on her capabilities and what benchmarks shes able to achieve have been quite at odds with all the feedback we received last year, and based on what we can see ourselves.

At the face to face parent-teacher interviews, her teacher told us that shes *way* ahead of where shes expected to be in reading, writing and math. We get her report card for the first semester three weeks later, and according to that shes struggling in most things. So its like, which one is it?

Foppe posted...

I still cant do a rolling R >_>

To be fair English doesn't necessitate it. Spanish though? Yeah, no, I can't.

S's were also a thing I worked on as a little little kid. Didn't lisp but didn't enunciate. When I get stressed or dead tired or super baby happy swooning mode I definitely mumble and mess up some of my old problem sounds.

The teacher was still being really pushy about it, even after being told that we wouldn't be able to meet with them this week or next week since my wife has a lot of medical appointments and that I'm running flat out so I can take carer's leave in a few weeks. The teacher still hasn't told us what the meeting would be about, other than that they have "serious concerns". They've been deliberately, obstinately vague the whole time. So my wife spoke to the principal today.

The principal was quite surprised that at no stage was consent sought for our daughter to be assessed in the first place. Normal practice would apparently be to inform parents that the classroom teacher had concerns, recommend that the itinerant speech therapist assess them and then seek parental consent before this would happen. Which is basically what got me so pissed off about the whole situation in the first place, other than that her teacher seems to have a weird *thing* against her.

My daughter told us that she'd seen this speech therapist on a number of occasions last term. The principal was also very surprised that we were neither given a copy of the assessment, nor told what the meeting would specifically about. My wife pointed out that as a teacher, if a parent had asked for a meeting and refused to divulge anything beyond having "serious concerns", any teacher would be fucking worried and probably want their head of faculty there as a support person.

The principal had not been informed of any serious concerns about our daughter, developmentally or behaviourally. They know our daughter (who is an extremely bubbly, friendly and outgoing kid) and only had positive things to say about her.

standard stuff to do this at 6yo.

i wouldnt worry about it so much. even if your school's assessment is wrong, it certainly wont hurt to meet with them.

also, to be totally honest, losing 2 front teeth doesn't always make someone talk differently, so maybe your school is actually correct in this.

I went to speech therapy through 3rd grade. Couldnt pronounce R, S, L, and a few other sounds. It helped a lot and getting pulled out of class to go talk in a mirror and play speech games was fun.

Sounds like your kid doesnt have an actual issue though.

I had speech therapy in 1st grade as I couldn't properly do the 'th' sound. Like in Arthur, I'd say 'arfer' or math would be 'maff'.

The therapist was a bitch who probably shouldn't have been working with children, but at least I speak that sound correctly!

<_<

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Robot2600 posted...

standard stuff to do this at 6yo.

i wouldnt worry about it so much. even if your school's assessment is wrong, it certainly wont hurt to meet with them.

also, to be totally honest, losing 2 front teeth doesn't always make someone talk differently, so maybe your school is actually correct in this.

Oh yeah, I get that. It's just at this point, there have been a number of "issues" that this teacher has had with our daughter that as either a current or former teacher, my wife and I have known are non-issues. To be honest, my daughter's enunciation is far better than mine. The only problem she has with her speech is the "th" to "f", which was not an issue before she lost her front teeth. Which is also supposed to be something kids aren't expected to be able to do until they're 8ish.

Given the "history" with "concerns" from this teacher, my wife and I are more worried that these "concerns" will actually turn out to be something else that may not actually be the case, but a way of dealing with what the teacher sees as a "difficult" student.
radical_rhino posted...

I went to speech therapy through 3rd grade. Couldnt pronounce R, S, L, and a few other sounds. It helped a lot and getting pulled out of class to go talk in a mirror and play speech games was fun.

Sounds like your kid doesnt have an actual issue though.

Amusingly enough (for a given quantity of amusing), my son actually needs a speech therapist and we haven't been able to get one.

If someone thinks your child needs help, get them that help immediately! Things that don't seem like a big deal when the child is small can spiral into lifelong difficulties later if you don't get them help.

darkmaian23 posted...

If someone thinks your child needs help, get them that help immediately! Things that don't seem like a big deal when the child is small can spiral into lifelong difficulties later if you don't get them help.

I completely get that, but in this case, considering that *someone* has not followed proper process regarding learning support and consultation with parents, appears to have a fairly antagonistic relationship with my child and has a habit of not flagging "serious concerns" with us before, I'm incredibly suspect.

We can actually tell which days her usual teacher is teaching the class, as opposed to a casual or the job share teacher, who takes them for a few days a cycle. When she has this teacher, she comes home in a much more subdued mood. Sometimes when we'd ask her how her day was, she'd actually start trembling. Those were *always* days when her "main" teacher had the class. To be honest, that was our first "what the actual fuck" flag. Our daughter is incredibly self-assured and resilient for a 6 year old. At home, if she gets in trouble and she doesn't think she deserves it, she'll give us what for. We've actually asked her if she does the same thing to her teachers at school, and she's horrified at the very thought of it.

We've told her teacher multiple times that we're engaged with her education and will support the teaching that goes on in the classroom at home. Instead, we've had a series of "very concerning" situations we're asked to suddenly weigh in on. It makes me ask... if you know we are incredibly open to supporting the efforts you're making in the classroom, why do you keep telling us when it gets to a critical point?

Her parent-teacher interview was extremely positive. In the meeting we had with her main teacher and the teacher who takes the other days, we were told our daughter is ahead of the expected milestones for reading and numeracy. Which was a surprise, given the previous "concerns". We get her report a few weeks later, which says she's behind. There is no consistency there, and that makes me wonder what the fuck is going on. I've seen my daughter's work samples for writing and numeracy. They are more than acceptable for a grade 1 kid. Fuck, at the parent-teacher interview her teacher shared an anecdote about our daughter where she'd had to go to sick bay after being clotheslined by a bigger kid. While she was gone, the teacher asked the kids to think about a number problem that was above their expected level. None of the kids got it. My daughter comes back into class, the teacher asked her if she knew the answer and she was able to give the answer immediately. When they asked her what strategy she used, it was a novel approach they hadn't been taught. I wish I could remember what it was, but she'd reduced the problems to basically base 20, and solved it that way. The teacher told us this as if it was impressive, and indicative of how advanced our daughter was in maths. Then a few weeks later, the report card said she was behind. Liek, wtf dude?

This topic is entirely born from frustration. I want to say "trust the teacher", since that's basically the cornerstone of the educational system, but I'm deeply frustrated and dissatisfied right now, with this particular teacher. That said, at a school level, it's an absolutely brilliant school. Her teacher last year was incredibly supportive and helped our daughter achieve what she was capable of achieving. The school itself is an incredibly supportive, nourishing environment and the principal is awesome. This year though, it seems like the teacher has decided our daughter is at a particular level (that's far, far below what her teacher last year thought her capable of), and that's that.

Speech therapy will not harm your daughter in any way.

if someone is suggesting that she gets a service, you should probably listen.

because when she goes to the speech pathologist they will test her anyway and they will make the final decision on whether or not she needs or could use OT or not.

Speech pathologists only help.

The_Creep_2020 posted...

I completely get that, but in this case, considering that *someone* has not followed proper process regarding learning support and consultation with parents, appears to have a fairly antagonistic relationship with my child and has a habit of not flagging "serious concerns" with us before, I'm incredibly suspect.

We can actually tell which days her usual teacher is teaching the class, as opposed to a casual or the job share teacher, who takes them for a few days a cycle. When she has this teacher, she comes home in a much more subdued mood. Sometimes when we'd ask her how her day was, she'd actually start trembling. Those were *always* days when her "main" teacher had the class. To be honest, that was our first "what the actual fuck" flag. Our daughter is incredibly self-assured and resilient for a 6 year old. At home, if she gets in trouble and she doesn't think she deserves it, she'll give us what for. We've actually asked her if she does the same thing to her teachers at school, and she's horrified at the very thought of it.

We've told her teacher multiple times that we're engaged with her education and will support the teaching that goes on in the classroom at home. Instead, we've had a series of "very concerning" situations we're asked to suddenly weigh in on. It makes me ask... if you know we are incredibly open to supporting the efforts you're making in the classroom, why do you keep telling us when it gets to a critical point?

Her parent-teacher interview was extremely positive. In the meeting we had with her main teacher and the teacher who takes the other days, we were told our daughter is ahead of the expected milestones for reading and numeracy. Which was a surprise, given the previous "concerns". We get her report a few weeks later, which says she's behind. There is no consistency there, and that makes me wonder what the fuck is going on. I've seen my daughter's work samples for writing and numeracy. They are more than acceptable for a grade 1 kid. Fuck, at the parent-teacher interview her teacher shared an anecdote about our daughter where she'd had to go to sick bay after being clotheslined by a bigger kid. While she was gone, the teacher asked the kids to think about a number problem that was above their expected level. None of the kids got it. My daughter comes back into class, the teacher asked her if she knew the answer and she was able to give the answer immediately. When they asked her what strategy she used, it was a novel approach they hadn't been taught. I wish I could remember what it was, but she'd reduced the problems to basically base 20, and solved it that way. The teacher told us this as if it was impressive, and indicative of how advanced our daughter was in maths. Then a few weeks later, the report card said she was behind. Liek, wtf dude?

This topic is entirely born from frustration. I want to say "trust the teacher", since that's basically the cornerstone of the educational system, but I'm deeply frustrated and dissatisfied right now, with this particular teacher. That said, at a school level, it's an absolutely brilliant school. Her teacher last year was incredibly supportive and helped our daughter achieve what she was capable of achieving. The school itself is an incredibly supportive, nourishing environment and the principal is awesome. This year though, it seems like the teacher has decided our daughter is at a particular level (that's far, far below what her teacher last year thought her capable of), and that's that.

Sounds like her teacher this year sucks and has some weird grudge against you or your kid

Also - TC your daughter sounds awfully a lot like my 4 year old whos way too smart for her own good. Gives us our moneys worth at home, speaks her mind bluntly, wants to make the rules and knows how to play the parent game.

doesnt pull that at school or with kids her age though.

I had to go to speech therapy when I was in kindergarten/1st grade cuz I sucked at pronouncing shit. Just do it >_>

I mean if she cant pronounce basic English she may need it.

There's no downside to seeing a speech pathologist at a young age if there's any pause for concern. It's not an insult or a badge of shame.

Sounds as if this teacher is not a good fit for your daughter, and it sounds as though your daughter is probably bored in school, which is leading to inconsistent work. I would request a meeting with the principal to get to the bottom of things.

Caveat: I am a teacher, but I work with older students. I also am a parent of 2 kids, one with a lot of special needs and another who had speech services. I see red flags with this teacher. My son had a horrible experience in third grade. He is about to start college (yay!), and he still talks about how his third grade teacher traumatized him. Dont let that happen to your daughter. Be her advocate.

Im curious where you live that school is in session right now.

I did speech pathology at kinder and it probably helped? Dont know what my problem was, but Ive never had any hurdles speaking well...except when Im nervous and try to speak the 1,000 thought currently inside my brain.

A lot of people are reading the first post and nothing else.
Kid had zero speech trouble previously.
Kid lost several front teeth.
Kid has speech trouble while waiting for new teeth to come in.

That's a natural process and doesn't require speech therapy.

meestermj posted...

A lot of people are reading the first post and nothing else.
Kid had zero speech trouble previously.
Kid lost several front teeth.
Kid has speech trouble while waiting for new teeth to come in.

That's a natural process and doesn't require speech therapy.

Yeah, reading subsequent posts shows that the speech issue is the least of the concerns here. Something is off about this situation (the teacher, not TC).

Trust the report card more than the conference

Teachers can't really be 100% honest at conferences because of how shitty parents are now. They always inflate every comment to be a bit nicer than they intend.

The report card is usually their true feelings. But even then, at elementary school with the 1-4 rating, most kids will just get a 3 in everything no matter what.

SecondBreakfast posted...

I mean if she cant pronounce basic English she may need it.

Literally her only issue is with th and f, because shes missing half of her incisors.

Sariana21 posted...

Sounds as if this teacher is not a good fit for your daughter, and it sounds as though your daughter is probably bored in school, which is leading to inconsistent work. I would request a meeting with the principal to get to the bottom of things.

Caveat: I am a teacher, but I work with older students. I also am a parent of 2 kids, one with a lot of special needs and another who had speech services. I see red flags with this teacher. My son had a horrible experience in third grade. He is about to start college (yay!), and he still talks about how his third grade teacher traumatized him. Dont let that happen to your daughter. Be her advocate.

Im curious where you live that school is in session right now.

Ill wager not the same continent.

I know, as a parent and a former teacher and as the spouse of a teacher (and after discussions with family members who are Ed psyc trained) that my son will need additional learning and speech support. Which were trying to secure for him, but there are ridiculous post-COVID lockdown waitlists. My daughter though, definitely not.

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Because Im me, I did a bit of LinkedIn stalking. The speech path is first year out of university and they had an abrupt career change from a lucrative paying job to move interstate and retrain in something else.

I had that happen with me. I remember it being kinda fun. I couldnt pronounce the word world for the longest time. And i never learned how to roll my Rs

The_Creep_2020 posted...

Literally her only issue is with th and f, because shes missing half of her incisors.

Ill wager not the same continent.

I know, as a parent and a former teacher and as the spouse of a teacher (and after discussions with family members who are Ed psyc trained) that my son will need additional learning and speech support. Which were trying to secure for him, but there are ridiculous post-COVID lockdown waitlists. My daughter though, definitely not.

Just to be clear, when I say to advocate for her, I dont mean for services (though thats important too). I mean advocate for her emotional well-being. If shes shutting down and experiencing personality changes, something is wrong. Stand up for her so that she knows you are on her side even if you cant get her out of this class. A bad experience with a teacher can have long-lasting effects.

I value everyones input in this topic, even if I disagree. The principal has said they will email us the reports tomorrow, so I wont post anymore in here until Im more properly informed as to what these serious concerns are.

Cheers, CE is actually a very sincere, heartfelt and well-considered place.

meestermj posted...

A lot of people are reading the first post and nothing else.
Kid had zero speech trouble previously.
Kid lost several front teeth.
Kid has speech trouble while waiting for new teeth to come in.

That's a natural process and doesn't require speech therapy.

Then the SLP would easily come to that conclusion when she is assessed.

The_Creep_2020 posted...

She is six. She has also lost half her front teeth, because six year old.

This pisses me off.

The_Creep_2020 posted...

I value everyones input in this topic, even if I disagree. The principal has said they will email us the reports tomorrow, so I wont post anymore in here until Im more properly informed as to what these serious concerns are.

Cheers, CE is actually a very sincere, heartfelt and well-considered place.

Hearing the rest of the story from you, I changed my mind and agree with you, at least from what you've said. It doesn't sound good for the teacher.

gunplagirl posted...

That's around when I started speech therapy and I was in it until like 7th grade? Rs were my last hurtle. All I'm saying is, don't dismiss it just because of her age.

this. And I was well into high school. also with the Rs

Finally received the report via the principal. Its absolute bullshit.

The report had sections ticked indicating that wed given consent for the screening and that we had received a copy of the screening report. Dodgy as fuck.

Coincidentally, the speech therapist is recommending out of school speech therapy with their practice.

Not sure what it will cost, if anything, but there is no harm in having her evaluated. Worst case scenario she gets the help she needs.

The_Creep_2020 posted...

Finally received the report via the principal. Its absolute bullshit.

The report had sections ticked indicating that wed given consent for the screening and that we had received a copy of the screening report. Dodgy as fuck.

Coincidentally, the speech therapist is recommending out of school speech therapy with their practice.

That seems pretty fucked up. If you don't see any real problems you could hold off until those front teeth come back in and get her a second opinion later.