ds (now aged 6) has been having speech therapy for 2 years (45 minutes a week during term time). The therapist is a lovely lady but I'm not sure we're getting anywhere. As I understand it, his problem is with making the sounds rather than actually understanding or using the words. Certainly he understands everything everyone asks him to do; asks me what new words mean and then incorporates them into his own speech; talks and sings endlessly.
He has some gross and fine motor problems too for which he has occupational therapy (difficult to explain what they are as - his movements are sort of jerky and odd, can't explain it better than that - he doesn't fit any of the classics signs of dyspraxia for example and they cause him absolutely no problem at all at the moment) and I guess his speech problems stem from the same thing.
He enjoys going to his therapist. She is lovely and friendly. They play lots of games. He's made some improvement - he can now say"k" and "g" instead of "t" and "d" although doesn't always manage to say it properly when in the middle of a long and complicated explanation. But I don't know how much of that would have happened anywhere with time.
I sort of feel that she doesn't really get him and I don't want to seem as if I don't trust her, but a few small things makes me wonder whether she and I see the same things. For example:
She seems very concerned about his grammar. In English he sometimes using a slight Germanic turn of phrase or the wrong preposition. I think he does the same in German too (we all speak English at home, dh and I are both English, he speaks German at daycare since he was a baby and at school). I would have thought that was normal to some extent given his circumstances and not especially worthy of mention?
Apparently his "r" in German is fine. It's really not at all in English. Would that be possible?
Also she's never mentioned problems with vowels whereas in English he quite often consistently uses the wrong sound "Imerica" rather than "America", "molk" instead of "milk" whilst being able to say "Amerika" and "milch" in German.
At the moment I consider his issues in English to be not so important. As he'll be at school here and working in German, clearly we need to get the German right. At home, we're used to him so we uinderstand him anyway. I wonder if it's normal to get some sounds right in one language and not the other, or is the therapist missing something?
Anyway I've gone on a bit. Summary is that I don't feel that we're making progress. Recently have spent about three months on the "sch" sound without any audible difference.
So do you think I would be unreasonable to ask if we could have a go with a different therapist, or should I persist a bit more? I admit that we're not very diligent about doing the homework she sets any more, although we were good in the beginning.We're both rather bored with gargling, sticking tongues out and blowing bubbles (which he could do before even starting therapy) although we do practise words and make up silly rhymes with the sounds in. Is the problem really me - should I just get on and do the work she sets?
What do you think?