TONGUE IN CHEEK MOVES

Earlier this year Isaiah had a speech screening at his school. They were debating on whether to offer speech therapy at his preschool. The worker decided Isaiah needed to be further evaluated. I took him in for this evaluation about three weeks ago. She said although he had few errors and had passed the evaluation which is lenient at his age, the errors he had were errors normally self corrected through development by now and he would require speech therapy. This was basically a given with his hearing and speech history. My goal was to try to get as many of the speech impediments corrected as possible before he starts kindergarten. He is starting to realize he says things wrong and often won't repeat things saying, "Mommy, I tan't say it right!" This just makes me sad and I will help him anyway that I can!

This past week we went for his first therapy session and to go over the final evaluation report.

His therapist is amazing and we both just love her. She said just after his progress in the first session that she thinks he will do really well and it probably won't take as long as noted. I found the session intriguing. I was so amazed at what she was doing and it was immediately working. Sure he will have to work with us and it will take time but it was just amazing. I've always known hearing affects speech and that speech involves proper tongue and mouth movements BUT this was too cool. For instance to say a K word or just the "ka" sound the front of the tongue goes down and behind the bottom front teeth while the back part goes up. She informed me that many children with his same prior medical issues will have the same speech impediments because they lack muscle control towards the back of the mouth. Interesting, huh!?!?

Well she was TRYING to teach him some tongue exercises to strengthen his back tongue muscles. One such exercise was closing his mouth then using his tongue to push against the inside of his cheek therefore forming a ball look on the outside of the cheek. Are you trying it? Not hard just the tongue in cheek move! She would then push on the ball on the outside and tell him not to let her push it in. Isaiah could not do it. To teach him, she decided to show him and let him "push" on her cheek.

Are you ready?

Here it goes:

Poor, innocent, sweet, cheerful and funny speech therapist makes the "ball" and tells Isaiah to PUSH the ball back into her mouth so it will go to the other side.

Ornery, concerned, sweet, handful yet still learning Isaiah punches the ball which is her tongue in cheek and we both had to laugh because it was so unexpected.

Then poor, innocent, sweet, cheerful and funny speech therapist says, "Ok lets do the other side but this time not so hard!"

What speech therapist should have said was "Do NOT punch just push with one finger!"? Mistake noted by MOI!

She puts tongue in cheek then tells him to push. He lifts his hand, makes a fist and draws it back to hit his new fun punching back when I swear within a split second her eyes were the size of quarters, she ducked and her chair flew back!

Embarrassing?

Yes!

Funny?

NO HI-LAR-I-OUS!
I wish you could have seen the expression on her face!

PRICELESS!

Instead of trying it again, she showed him with MOMMY pushing!

Pushing/punching?

They sound alike to me!

He went home with "homework" which totally excited him since he gets jealous that he doesn't have any homework. He is doing well and we will return for more therapy next Tuesday. Can't wait to see what he learns next time. Kid you not I was amazed just watching. THEN in the drive home I was saying different words and paying complete attention to my tongue placement.

Try it with me!

You know you want to!

Say the word "THINK" outloud making note of your tongue placement.

for the "th" sound the tip of you tongue rubs against the bottom of your top front teeth

for the "i" sound your tongue goes back and stays mainly in the middle

for the "k" sound the tip of your tongue goes down against the back of your bottom front teeth with a click coming from the back

Amazing I know!

I spend the good part of an hour saying random words over and over while driving or talking on the phone and paying very close attention to tongue placement. Wow! Then I got rather freaked out that our brains know where the tongue should go as long as we have the muscle control! Freaky, huh!