Ana's Speech Evaluation / The Hell of My Procrastination

[neversremedy8]

Ana's speech difficulties are 1) not my fault (huge weight lifted off of my shoulders that I didn't know was there) and 2) are not caused by any issues with the brain. She's fucking brilliant. I wish I could have recorded her responses. Even the evaluator was significantly impressed, and she meets hundreds of children every month. There were times when Ana answered the evaluator before she'd finished asking the question, she also just figured out what was expected of her without being asked and did it. Eventually she realized fully why the evaluator was writing her responses down and when she did it, and it caused her to fidget and get nervous. Her brow furrowed and she looked resentful of having her mistakes written down. But she still had fun with asking "why" questions and coming up with stories for pictures, even though she was just required to either point to things in a certain sequence or repeat/say words based on the pictures (or repeat parts of stories).

So what's wrong? Her hearing is fine, she has "excellent teeth" and comprehends fully what is around her(she is exceptionally observant, and I can finally see it and so many other attributes now that I've taken myself out of the situation and been able to observe her without interacting). The problem lies primarily in her adenoids. She is able to articulate mentally what she wants to say, she understands the language she wishes to use, but when her brain tells her mouth/voice/et al to operate and create those words, it gets cut up and comes out sounding rough and inarticulate. The constant congested sound quality of her voice is also caused by these enlarged adenoids, and it's directly affecting her self confidence and also causes her to fidget and seem unable to focus. She's so nervous and frustrated all the time!

The evaluator said that speech therapy is in order. Ana's primary problems are with articulation (because of the adenoids) and sentence structure, also partly due to the adenoids. There was a scientific term used to describe her condition, but since it was said only once, not familiar to me, and wasn't written down, I can't tell you what it is yet. I'll call them tomorrow when they're open again to get more inforamtion--we were there for two hours, so everyone else had left and closed the center down while we were still in the evaluation rooms (I was with the evalutor's trainee behind a two-way mirror).

Ana had both of us laughing in that back room, and the evaluator even said she was trying VERY hard to not laugh at some points. :) They commented on her beauty and her high intelligence, and I told Ana how proud I was of her. Some of the stuff Ana came up with just amazed me! I couldn't believe how inquisitive, observant, intelligent, intuitive, clever, and cunning she is. I knew she was smart, but there have been times when it seemed like there was nothing going on, when really it's simply a matter of it being too frustrating for her to speak because of this disconnection between brain and voice. She told the evaluator that some of the words for the pictures were "too hard" to say. She said she knew what they were, but "it's hard for me" she explained. *sighs* Poor thing. When she was misunderstood at one point, she refused to repeat what she originally used as a description and tried another way of identifying an object in the room--at first she'd said something like "brown-dog-box" but it came out garbled, and so she said, "that thing with the white handle."

Examples: Ana also spent extensive time coming up with--unnecessarily, but enjoyed by all--questions and stories about the pictures she was seeing, and explaining what she knew about certain items on the cards. Like why roses have thorns, and such. When she was asked to point to "some tigers" in a zoo picture, Ana pointed to one, and the evaluator turned the page. Ana stopped her and corrected herself, saying, "one is not 'some.'" The eval. asked if she wanted her to redo it, and so Ana pointed to two of the three tigers and said, "that is 'some.'" During one section she was required to repeat portions of a story she was listening to, mostly the dialogue at the end of each page, and not only did she do as well as she could (with her usual speech problems in tow), but she mimicked the eval's tone of voice and inflection on each word. So impressed, and I told her as much when we left.

So, the brain is healthy. Everything else can be overcome.

* * * * *

I need to get to bed, but I've been procrastinating terribly. Despite having far more pressing matters on my to do list, I'm going through my LJ archives and tagging them. To make matters worse, I ran across this link: join my procrastination hell.

I hope my child gets sent home for something like this:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets, and to the galaxy for which it stands, one universe, under everybody, with liberty and justice for all species. (see link for the entire story) And yes, we should all buy the t-shirt. Ana should have one in her size. Damnit. I need a job. Or a sugar daddy. Or lottery winnings (it would help if I bought a ticket). Or something.

Oh, and I have 11 new icons. That means I had to delete 11 former icons, all of which I loved to have. *sighs* Change is hard. Even when it's just LJ icons or cut hair or my child going to Kindergarten. Wait. Scratch that last one. That one's big. May she always find creative ways to rebel and subvert the system and still come out with a decent education!

And now, a poll to apologize for the long, long, long post without a cut:

[Poll #518453]

I apologize now should anything be misspelled. For truly I am tired. Very tired. Small 'mount of depression seeping into my veins. A good night's rest may help. Love, hugs, and kisses to all. Especially those who are dearest to me. I am blessed, I'm just not very happy with the way I'm handling my life. Love, love, love.

Oh, and my favorite (calm/quiet) Beatles song: Dear Prudence (although there are many tied for runner-up)

Comments

[jodawi.livejournal.com]

Velopharyngeal Dysfunction ?

[betsycontent.livejournal.com]

Googled this. Yes, this sounds like it may be correct. Thanks for posting. Alas, seems to require surgery plus speech therapy, but perhaps it depends on severity and can be overcome with speech therapy alone?

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

That's my hope. :)

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

In part, yes, though there was another term she used as well. I'll be calling them after their lunch hour to discuss therapy and diagnosis. :)