At the age of 4 (last year), my son was very
slow in speech development. In fact, he just started to speak in short simple sentences, but couldn't really express himself. Pronunciation was not accurate and half the time, we had to guess what he was trying to say. We sent him to kindergarten then and was quite upset when we found that most of his classmates were already chattering away in perfect sentences and making a lot of sense. Because of this, my son who was usually very loud and active at home, became a totally different person at school. Quiet and reclusive as his classmates couldn't understand and interact with him. Other areas of learning were also affected and he was one of the slowest in class in terms of both academic and non-academic development.
Being concerned parents, we got really worried and started asking around for help and advices. I have even posted a discussion on Mead Johnson forum. Many moms gave me good advices. Thanks very much :). I was hunting for
Speech Therapist to see if there was a medical problem. All speech therapist were booked up but managed to do some assessments! Frantic, we even checked him for mild altruism and hyperactivity and such. Thank God, he was fine. He was just slower.
It seems that this is a fairly common problem, especially when he/she is the first born. (My 2-yr old son speaks very well. He plays with his older brother and just copies him.) After my AMN posting, several moms also came forward with similar problems - including my neighbour's daughter! So if you have similar problem, should you be worried? First step, go for checks - audiologist, speech therapist, professional help, doctors or even psychiatrist (if it is behavioral issue) to rule out the worst. The faster you know, the faster you can seek medical attention for your child if you need to.
In my case, my son was just slow. I began coaching him in the evenings on the simple basics that he even had problem with then. Here are some of the things I did and some suggestions:
1. Do writings - numbers and alpha/phonics.
2. Use of flash card - random flash and sequence flash.
3. Playing games with flash card - eg. closing the cards and asking him to flip over and indetify them one by one.
4. Reverse teacher-student role by letting be the teacher. (I would intentionally make a mistakes so that he can 'correct' me. Works! )
5. He loves bedtime stories. I got him to read with me simple pre-school reader books. Made him pronounce words properly. And explain the meaning of some words to him.
6. Give him incentives (colourful stickers with his favourite characters) if he complete his writing or did something well.
7. Speak to him all the time and encourage him to describe things to me (even while we were on the road).
8. For some moms, they send their kids to music classes eg Musikgarten. It seems that this helps.
I shared coaching experiences with his teacher (and vice versa) and together, we pooled our efforts to help him. His teacher would update me on what were the current topics and where he needed more drilling. I would then find ways to revise and reinforce it with him at home. We saw marked improvement! As parents, we need to recognise that there is only so much that a teacher can do in school - with so many students and limited time. So parental involvement is the KEY. Just talk to their teachers and find out the areas that you need to reinforce in your child.
Today, my son is a different person in school than he was last year. No longer quiet. In fact, quite chatty and very much his own personality. He is still slower than a lot of students but I'm making efforts to help him. E.nopi Math helped him a lot. And through his playmates in school, at enrichment classes and at home (playground), he is learning to communicate more.
There still many more areas to pick up. My quest for his better future continues....
