the lisp goes on

 A little update.

Talking Time.

Danny was re-evaluated on Friday. He took a little test. The teacher flipped the pages and he named the things he saw in the pictures. All to hear if he's improved on pronouncing the sounds that were giving him problems all those months ago when we started this whole process.

Chiet instead of Quiet.

Chop it instead of Stop it.

The Lisp.

Lots of other stuff too but it's been so long since he said them wrong that I can't even remember now.

His standard score on that test when he took it in December was 74. 100 is average.

His standard score when he took it on Friday was 105. That's above average!

I'm happy with that. I'm proud of him for working so hard. It's a fine line to walk between correcting your kid when he talks and making him feel badly that he's not saying things right. Finesse. Lots of praise. Oooh. Good R sound, Danny! Wow! Listen to those L's. They sound great!

I'm super proud of him for figuring out his R's all by himself. Ever since the second day of Talking Time he's been making a grand effort to pronounce his R's like an R instead of ahh. The teacher never even assigned him that letter to work on (since it's not even a sound that has to be mastered until kids are 7 they don't address it in Talking Time). He just decided on his own to fix it and he did.

I made a little game out of helping him with it too.

We make up pirate jokes.

Where does a pirate like to play after school?  The parrrrrrk!

What is a pirate afraid of in the ocean? Sharrrrrks!

What is a pirate's favorite class in school?  Arrrrrrt!

What's a pirate's favorite animal?  Aarrrrrrrdvarrrrrk! (I especially like that one.)

Fun game, right? You have to say the punchline with a pirate's voice though (so you really get that R practice in).


He'll most likely graduate from Talking Time in a few weeks. We're still working on the L sound in the middle of words (ballerina, caterpillar, hello) but that's coming along quite nicely. The lisp was gone for a while when we were really focusing on keeping the teeth shut to make the S sound. Seems like we've gotten lazy with that one and the lisp has been sneaking back in.

His teacher said that's ok. Keep working on it. Lots of adults have a lisp.

Maybe so, but my kid even snores with a lisp.

Adorable.


*Update: Danny thought of another joke while he was choosing his cereal for breakfast.

What's a pirate's favorite cereal?  Lucky Charrrrrrms!