speech therapy for THE James.

James had his first assessment with the speech therapist this past weekend. It was actually hard finding him a therapist to take his case. I'm not sure why. They originally wrote in his new file that he had a learning disorder (or something) but once we corrected that mistake, he had 2 potential therapists drop him. I guess my little dude is too easy of a case. Ha. I guess that's an okay problem to have!

It went pretty well. Unfortunately, I wasn't here at home to witness it. And yes! they actually come to your home in our county. I complain about living in such a crowded and congested and overpopulated county, but damn if I'm not thankful for this. It's so nice to have them come here.
I hear it went really well. It was just an assessment so the therapist can write an individual plan for him. She sounds really nice and James seems to really like her, so that helps a ton. She talked to him about various things, getting him to open up and show his vocabulary.
So basically this is how it goes...
James is a really smart kid. I know, we're all supposed to say that. But the therapist commented on that. His problem is that he would know the word for something but feel embarrassed to say it out loud for for fear of pronouncing it wrong. Poor kiddo.
For instance, she held up one of my hair clips from the floor (thanks Natalie) and asked him to tell her what it was.. after convincing him to not feel embarrassed he says "haiw cwip" all shy.
I feel bad that he feels embarrassed. I made sure to tell him several times that it's okay to say it the way he knows how and that no one is going to make fun of him. I'm thinking he feels weird to have a therapist come here.. he mentioned something about that to me today. I explained how awesome it is to have some help when we need it and that everyone needs help with something. That it's okay and that his tongue muscles just need some exercising. He giggled when I showed him my tongue exercising skillz. After that he said "love" and emphasized the "L" and I clapped. He actually pronounced an "L"! You could tell how proud he was of himself. That made me feel so happy.. I love seeing him feel proud.
He just needs a little help to pronounce "L"s, "R"s, "TH", "CH", and hmm.. I think that's it but I'll find out more later this week.
In the words of his speech therapist "he'll get it really fast because he's so smart".
I love my James.