Bay Area Disability
Network
Archived Speech Advice
Short sentences
Verbal Fluency - 10 year old
Speech problems in 3-year-old boy
Oral Communication Class
Artificial Larynx
Artificial Larynx
My father recently had a laryngectomy, and now needs an artificial
larynx. I don't even know what this is, much less how to find about about them.
Help!
- The California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) provides Artificial Larynxes
free of charge - call them at (800) 806-1191 (assuming he is in California.
If he lives out of state, check with the CTAP to see if they have a state
program)
Oral Communication Class
My son has been told that, in order to graduate from a four year
college, he will have to pass a "Oral Communications" class, which
is a class in Public Speaking. His speech is very difficult to understand due
to CP. Can this requirement be waived?
- Most schools will waive this requirement, or allow your son to take it and
be judged not on the clarity of his speech but on the content of his remarks.
Tell him to call the Disabled Student Program at his college and ask.
Speech problems in 3-year-old boy
I need advice about what to do with speech and social problems of my son who is almost 3 years 9 months old.
He was diagnosed with receptive and expressive language delays when he was just 3 and we went through the 4 months of speech therapy with Oakland Children's Hospital, when they told us that he has adequate speech skills and does not qualify for the speech therapy anymore. The problem is that even if he does pretty well on the evaluation tests now, he cannot talk like that anywhere but home and therapist's office. And even we have problems to understand what he is saying unless we know what he is talking about. When speech therapist checked his sounds he is very good in producing them, when he repeats single words, but completely unable to speak clearly when he talks spontaneously or is using sentences with more than three words. His grammar is very immature (he skips articles, propositions, does not use past tense), he has trouble finding the right words, and generally expressing his thoughts unless he already talked through them with somebody else. When you add on top of that stuttering and mumbling you get a really sad picture.
But again since he is doing well on the tests, giving one or two words answers, those problems are just not identified during evaluation. Especially since he knows numbers, colors, some basic classifications, opposites really well it pushes his score higher. And yes, we contacted Oakland school district and got the same answer. They talk about doing evaluation in August. I probably could have just leave the situation as is till August, but I am afraid that it will be so much worse if we don't do anything now. 4 years olds are great communicators with a sophisticated vocabulary and my son with his poor language and communication skills is just falling more and more behind. He goes to preschool three days a weeks and his teachers say that his play and communicative skills are just not progressing.
I am wondering did somebody have a situation like that and what did you do about it? Are there options other than our health insurance, school district, and private practice? I heard about Scottish Rite Language Center and Center for Communicative Disorders in Hayward State University , but don't know anything about them. I would really appreciate any advice about our situation and about any program that can help my son. Thank you.
- I was able to get speech therapy for many years through the school district (Oakland) based on improving the 'length and intelligibility of her utterances' including learning how to pause at the right places in a sentence while she was talking. She was very verbal but not very understandable at times -- which sounds similar to your situation. I agree that 4 years old is an important age to get these services. There's no reason the school district has to wait until August to the assessment -- request it in writing now and don't waive the time limit for their response and you should get it sooner. If you can afford it, you might want to get an independent assessment done as well -- I'd recommend Children's Hospital but it sounds like you aren't getting what you want there (they were great with my daughter, including for assessments which I then used to push the school district to provide therapy services when they tried to discontinue them.) Don't be swayed by any arguments they try to use about other children needing the services more -- if your son needs them, they have to provide them, as they need to for all children who need them. I'm assuming your son has an IEP. If not, you'll need to request the assessments that should lead to qualifying him for one - and then push to get the services he needs into the IEP. The Family Resource Network (in Berkeley , serves all of Alameda County families with kids with special needs) would be a good resource for you on all of this… Anonymous
Verbal Fluency - 10 year old
We have a bright and happy 10 year old daughter - she does well in school, is reading above grade level, etc. However, she struggles with verbal expression, especially around concepts or detailed descriptions. It seems to impact her willingness to contribute in group situations and we would like to help her develop more verbal confidence. She was a late talker and had some speech therapy as a preschooler and in the early grades for articulation. We'd like to help her develop her communication skills, but are not sure where to turn. Any thoughts about professionals who can work with her on verbal fluency? Thanks for the help!
- You might consider discussing the situation with your daughter's pediatrician to see what he or she recommends. Reluctance to engage in group situations and verbal difficulties might be attributable to different causes, some of which might be addressed by pragmatic speech therapy, some by social skills therapy, or otherwise. My 12 year old son has seen speech therapists over the years for pragmatic speech therapy that included work on clear concept expression, such as story sequencing and mentally formulating 3 sentence statements before speaking them. Both of my sons have also attended social skills groups to help them communicate more effectively in groups. I hope this helps. Good luck. Anonymous
Short sentences
Hi my daughter is almost three and she almost never uses more than two words at a time. Our pediatrician doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem but I’ve noticed that kids around her age are chattering away at length. She doesn’t seem frustrated or anything and everyone can understand her. She just doesn’t seem to be linking more words together. I don’t know if I’m being silly about this but my sister’s son had some fairly serious speech problems and they didn’t deal with it until he was six and I think it really caused unnecessary problems for my nephew. Thanks, Karen
- Like you, I've often found health professionals ignoring my concerns about my daughter. My advice: Trust Yourself. You're with her every day. You know when things don't feel right. Speech delay at this young age can mean alot of different things - hearing, oral-motor skills, etc. Or, it can mean nothing at all - she just doesn't have a need to talk more. Either way, it sounds like you want to check it out. When your child turns 3, you can write to your school district's Special Education Director and ask them to assess her for possible problems. As long as you do it in writing, they have to respond to you. They will ask you for any existing test results (such as hearing). Just say you don't have any but your child's speech is very delayed. They have lots of preschool specialists who can help you determine if there is anything more that you might want to do. If you want more ongoing advice, you might want to join the Bay Area Special Needs Group - we're parents and professionals with lots of kids: bayarea_specialneedskids@yahoogroups.com Corbett
- A short answer: yes your child should be tested by a speech therapist. There is a good program at Herrick Hospital
