I turned 4 today, but when you ask me how old I am I say 3, 8 or 9... never 4. I got lots of presents and even got a bike... but think it'll be some time before I learn how to ride it. I wish people wouldn't sing happy birthday to me, it freaks me out... find it too overwhelming. I didn't like it last year either. Thanks to everyone who came, I had lots of fun and loved having an audience when I was breakdancing.
My therapist comes to see me at nursery school once a week for speech therapy. At the moment we are working on the “voicing” process using a therapy technique called “Metaphon”. This technique starts by teaching the concept of noisy and quiet. We have been talking about noisy and quiet animals, noisy and quiet sounds etc. I'll need to do this at home too. Some things I'll be doing...
Making noisy sounds (banging drums, clapping hands loudly, shaking maracas).
Making quiet sounds (rubbing hands together, softly hitting the drum, blowing air).
Talk about which animals are noisy (lions, elephants, dogs).
Talk about which animals are quiet (fish, snakes, spiders).
If I hear a noisy sound comment on it, and the same for quiet sounds.
The next step in this therapy is to start talking about noisy and quiet speech sounds.
I had thorough tests today and have been given the all-clear. They tested my vision first which is perfect. To test if I was colour blind they showed me pages in a book that showed images that were made up of lots of small coloured circles. I had to find a dog, a butterfly, an elephant, a flower, a rabbit etc. I got 8 out of 10 correct which means I'm not colour blind.
My visual perception will more than likely be a cognitive issue so will be working on that more and I'm sure I'll get the gist of it, with a little effort and support.
I have a new speech therapist and she came to nursery to observe me. The good news is that there is no sign of a 'disorder', only 'delay'. It's just a matter of time before it comes together, I will be having speech therapy in blocks of around 6-8 weeks and should respond very well to this.
I am able to produce all the sounds expected in a child of my age. This shows that I don't have an articulation disorder (inability to say sounds).
I use some delayed phonological processes; therefore I have a mild phonological delay.
I have a good ability to combine sounds in different combinations.
I have a moderate reduction in speech intelligibility (how easy I am to understand). My speech intelligibility is impacted on by reduced speech precision, reduced voice volume, hypo-nasality and reduced intelligibility with increased length of utterance. I appear to have reduced breath control for speech.
I'm being referred back to great ormond street opthalmology for an eye test. I struggle with colours and visual perception so need to find out if i'm colour blind or not. Papa is colour blind, so I could well be.
Papa took me for a haircut, it's so hot now and my hair was too long. I like it, I feel so much cooler. What do you think?
