My dd is 5 and started school last September. She has always had speech problems, she never babbled as a baby (hearing tests fine though), was so slow to start saying any words I couldn't tell you what her first one was, I asked for help over and over again and was just told 'wait until she is 2' and then when she was 2 and had less then 10 words I was told' oh she will get there soon' she started pre-school when she was a month of 3 with less then 20 words and the ones she had were mainly only understood by me and dh. Pre-school was great for her and she did have a language explosion and started using sentences but still only people who knew her well could understand her and she would not speak to any one she didn't know well. Finally when she was 3 years and 3 months old I got a speech therapy referral but had to wait over 6 months for an appointment, when she did have her assessment they said that at that stage she had a slight delay and was 18 months to 2 years behind on her sound formation. They didn't do anything though, just gave common sense advice (repeat the word correctly and move on) that we had be doing all along any way. Also at this time I was chasing the GP about the fact she dribbled constantly and profusely requiring up to 4 top changes a day and causing her more and more embarrassment and upset as time went on (she had been dribbling like this since she was a few weeks old), the GP fobbed me off, told me he would get back to me and never ever did, exasperated I saw an add looking for children for a new children's run of the TV show embarrassing bodies and I applied thinking nothing would come of it but at least I could say I had tried everything. I was over the moon and a little shocked when they got back to me saying they would love to help us. Long story short is that they referred us to an ENT consultant who after a 10 min chat with us and one look in dd's mouth informed us that she had a sever tongue tie and huge tonsils he also thought it was very likely she had large adenoids as well. he told us these things were causing the dribbling, large parts of the speech issues, her recurrent infections and very worrying sleep apnea (we just thought she snored like her Daddy, poor wee girl!). A month after first seeing us he did surgery to remove the massive tonsils, found the adenoids were also massive and removed those, he also found that her tongue tie was complete and did the best he could at releasing that. After surgery the dribbling almost completely stopped, the snoring and apnea's have vanished with the infections but naturally speech problems remain, even with surgery her tongue tie was so bad she still can't lift her tongue and has to learn how to use her tongue in speech.
This brings us to now, a strained relationship with her speech therapist who I can't quite forgive for never looking in her mouth or asking the question is there was a physical reason for her speech problems. I also have issues with the fact they still aren't willing to give the help she needs they are the kings and queens of posting information sheets with no support on the other end of the spectrum we have her school and reception teacher who are wonderfully supportive and determined to give my dd all the help she needs, she has been on an IEP since October but at her IEP review this week they gave me some news that had me biting back the tears, her speech is now effecting her reading and writing, she knows all her sounds but due to the sound she can make and they sound that should be made being so different she is struggling badly with blending to make words. I knew she was struggling with this, been giving all the support I know how to but hadn't realised how much of a problem it was becoming. She is having her speech therapy review a week Friday to see where we are at and make the decision on handing over to the in school therapist from September as she will be in key stage one and able to access it, school without me even having to ask are writing a letter stating that she must not be discharged from speech therapy and she is still in need of allot of help and support.
It seems that my dd will have a new IEP come September, hopefully including time with the speech therapist who covers the school (a different lot then she is under now thank goodness) and she will also go on the special needs register. I just feel lost and emotional about it all, I see my dd trying so hard but being scared of getting it wrong that she guesses more words then she reads, she has lost the strong desire she had last September to learn to read as she is finding ohh so hard, she had never been shouted at or diminished in any way for struggling but it's her personality, she wants to achieve and be good at it bless her. Teacher had advised to take a break for most of the summer, she said that in dd's case she is very very unlikely to forget what she has learnt, she is very very secure in knowing all her sounds, it's just putting them together... okay I am rambling now and it's an already very long post and I don't know what I want to achieve from writing it other then to get it all out, maybe find somebody who is maybe going through or has gone through similar...