Speech Therapy

This subject has been on my mind a lot lately.  Maybe due to the not so regular and as-healthy-as-can-be diet that has over come us this month.  Nothing major, but it seems our bodies are ever so willing to go south much faster than moving in the right direction if given even an inch!  As such, I can definitely notice a difference in Jedidiah's speech.  The sad thing is, that even when eating healthy he is still very hard to understand by anyone outside our family.  Right now, pretty much everyone but me, is having a hard time understanding what he is saying.  Having just turned eight years old is just making this seem larger than life right now.  I saw a video of a nine year old boy, who had apraxia and went through therapy, speaking very clearly.  My heart sank.

I have been looking into doing speech therapy at home.  But it seems I waver from being overwhelmed or a sinking spirit.  Most things cost money.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that.  The problem is we don't have a lot of money to put to such things.  We are not talking ten dollars, but hundreds.  Jed has a lot of poor articulation with many of his letters.  I am trying to come up with a solution that will work for us.  For now I have not found it, but I am still searching.

I looked on line to see if I could find a way to get our school system to give Jed more than two days a month therapy.  However, since homeschooling is established as a non-public education, we are not to be given 'public' help.  Basically, they were doing us a favor by giving us 2 days a month.  Sigh.  I know I can work with Jedidiah at home. The problem is that since he has so many speech issues I don't even know where to begin.  So maybe getting even just a base line of which sound to work on would be helpful.  However his speech therapist at the school wasn't very helpful in this matter as she had to go and get the next group of kids.  But with some online ideas, and knowing which sounds he should be working on I think we may get somewhere.

Not sure yet.  Maybe looking into even one speech therapy session a month with our insurance might work better (private therapy).  This way I can actually sit in on the session to see what the therapist is doing and have a better working relationship with them.  With the school therapy I can't sit in to see what they are working on.  I've been scouring the internet and Pinterest to find ideas.  I decided to start with the very basics.  I think we will make a couple of games that have just some sounds, or mouth movements, and work from there.  Jonah needs a bit of help as well.  He can be difficult to understand, but not as bad as Jed.  I figure we will just play the games together.  The more the merrier, right?  I thought I would take a video of Jedidah talking.  You can see it below:

Edited to add:

   I am linking up with some blog hops that are about homesteading, homemaking, homeschooling and the like.  It may seem odd to put a post on there about speech issues.  The connection is that speech issues, as I am finding out, effect learning abilities.  It has been found that children who do not get speech therapy early on in their life (in the toddler years) will be effected later in their schooling years with their ability to read.  Jedidiah had therapy early on, but his issues are not fully resolved.  As such this is definitely effecting his reading ability.  He is a very smart boy.  The issue isn't in his intelligence, but with his abilities to sound out what he is reading.  I'm not sure if I should be encouraging his reading when he is sounding out the sounds incorrectly.  This is where having a speech therapist will be helpful!

 

Has anyone else dealt with speech issues with their child?  Did it effect their reading?  Any long term consequences that you have noticed?  I am very much interested in hearing from others who have been down this journey!!  Please don't be shy.  Leave me a comment about your experience.  Thank you!

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