This likely won't come as a surprise to most of you, but 2 1/2 year old Gideon started therapy today.
Hey, cut the kid some slack, you'd be in therapy too if I was your mother! Well, this is speech and language therapy. He doesn't say any words. He said a couple when he was 1, but stopped. Now he has a whole language of mumbles and intonations and he does it all without moving his lips. His influences appear to be Kenny on South Park without the hooded coat and Curious George. Does that make him avant guarde or school of quietude? Does it matter that he's never seen South Park?
The therapist says she's never heard a child "talk" quite like him -- of course not, he's my son, he's unique, dare I say innovative. He's doing new things with toddler sound.
So we're gonna work on getting those lips moving and make him like a regular talking boring kid.
I'm thinking fun with lip gloss, but Chris, as always, poo-pooed that good idea.
And that's as close as I'll get to writing "poop" on my blog today. You're welcome.
posted by RL @ 7:55 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Almost every two and a half year old boy I've known since becoming a mother has ended up in therapy of some sort. (& think -- I've known some in "chewing" therapy -- so be proud he knows how to chew, not everyone does). Often these same boys also have loved to stubbornly poop in their diapers & some even liked to pee on radiators and in heating vents, etc.
The good news is I also know many boys who were two and a half and in therapy & seemed likely to poo on themselves forever and now are perfectly regular talking boring kids who go to a toilet, some even regular talking way-too-clever boring kids w/ better than average hygiene.
xo
Anne
THAT'S COOL. I HAD A LOAD OF SPEECH AND ALL SORTS OF THERAPY. I WOULDN'T CHANGE IT FOR THE WORLD.
sorry about the caps. i didn't look at the screen until i had typed the entire paragraph.
i didn't think it was worth the time to retype, but could have done so twice by now.
that's silly
Talking is one of those weird things that usually fixes itself quickly once you pay attention to it...I had to go to speech therapy myself, once many a moon ago, and was quickly cured of an annoying lisp through many repetitions of "Zippety do Dah."
More to the point, my uncle didn't speak AT ALL until he was five because every time he pointed at something, someone would get it for him, and so he didn't talk until one night at the dinner table when people were conversing and not paying attention to his pointing and his first words were a perfectly clear "PASS THE BUTTER!"
I also have friends who were distraught that their three year old child couldn't speak anything but jibberish, until they realized that all the workers at their child care service were Iranian and their child was actually speaking Farsi.
This is probably hard and worrying, and I have no business talking as a non-child-having person, but at 2-and-a-half, their plastic little brains can suck up anything. Swedish, juggling, dialectical theory. If he is otherwise happy and healthy, talking is probably something he just hasn't gotten around to because of how interesting blocks and ice cream are by comparison.
Hi Reb:
Hope it all turns out well.
All kids are different and grow and develop at different rates, in their own way.
Try blowing bubbles to get those lips going!
xo
Peter
I agree with Maureen, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If he's responsive, playful, happy and healthy that's all you really need out of a 2.5 yr old, right? Many kids wait until they have something important to say, to talk, and it can take till they're 4 or 5. The ability to speak a language develops later than the ability to understand it, and writing comes last of all. Gideon's not unusual or delayed in any way. Actually, I am reading Audre Lorde right now, and she didn't start talking till she was 4. Her first words were: "I want to read."
But this seems like a common story, especially for writers: "I didn't talk till I was 4 and then suddenly I started speaking iambic pentameter" or whatever.
Clearly, his primarly language is Gertrude Stein.
i was born in the 60s, so i didn't go into therapy.
well—until the 80s.
anyway, i didn't speak until i was three. when i did start speaking, i spoke in articulate, complete sentences (so i'm told).
i even got off the diapers eventually.
since we know so well know what normal is, can't they just give your son some sort of injection?
You only think he hasn't seen South Park.
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