Speech Therapy

We took Tralee to the speech therapist on Wednesday for her assessment. She did really well working with Danielle, the nice therapist. Tralee usually does really well when all the attention is on her. The first thing Danielle noticed was Tralee's tongue, and that she pushes it forward a lot. We've noticed that too, but never thought much of it. Turns out, there's a term for that (I can't remember it right now) and it needs to be worked on. That means, no more sippy cups for Tralee! Only big girl cups. That's the first step to help Tralee's tongue with speech. It was time to say goodbye to the sippy cups anyways. I was the one hanging on to them because I didn't want to have to deal with the messes real cups can produce when knocked over. Next, Tralee was asked to say different words from a story book about a dog for the speech portion, and point to pictures to answer questions for the language portion of the assessment. We didn't make it all the way through the language portion, as Tralee's enthusiasm with the process wore off, and she just wanted to play. There was a page with a duck on it, and instead of answer the question about the duck, Tralee pretended to take the duck off the page and play with it. We skipped that page and went to the next page that had food on it. Instead of answer which food is cold, Tralee took each food item off the page and pretended to eat it. Danielle said, "She has a VERY good imagination." Yes, our child will not need imagination therapy, but she WILL need speech therapy and probably language therapy (after we complete the assessment) two times a week for at least six months. Each session is half an hour and I'm excited about it. I think Tralee will really enjoy it, and-- added bonus-- her speech and language will improve! Hooray!

Maybe I'm supposed to feel sad or worried that my child needs some extra help developing her language skills, but I don't. I know my child. I know she's smart, I know what she's capable of, and I know with time -- and a little extra help -- her speech will improve. So. . . from here on out don't ask us to come for play dates on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, cause we'll be rockin' our language skills in therapy baby!!