By Barbara O’Brien
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
It was no surprise to Amy and Peter Scharf that their younger daughter was recommended for speech therapy in kindergarten.
They knew that 6-year-old Rachel said “lellow” for yellow and “thithers” for scissors. It also was one of her endearing qualities.
But one day she came home and said, “Yellow!”
“Mommy, guess what?” Rachel said.
“She said, ‘Ye-, ye-, ye-, yel-low!’ ” Amy Scharf recalled. “That was her big hurdle to go over.”
The next time she saw her grandparents and aunts and uncles, Rachel proudly shared her speech prowess.
Sometimes parents don’t realize the extent of the speech problems, because they’re so used to their children talking that way. The Scharfs occasionally would turn to their older daughter, Rebekah, a fourth-grader, to interpret.
“There were times we looked at Rebekah, because we couldn’t understand [Rachel], but Rebekah could,” Amy Scharf said.
Rachel’s speaking patterns were evaluated for four months before she started school in the screening before kindergarten at West Seneca West Elementary by speech pathologist Kiernan Pierce.
It’s part of the district’s early intervention program that gauges readiness skills for the school. Speech and language assessments are made, and pupils needing extra help are flagged before they walk through the door.
“In kindergarten, if you can intervene quickly you can strengthen a weakness,” said Charles Lehman, assistant superintendent of pupil services.
Pierce found that Rachel displayed some sound substitutions and some sound errors. She has been meeting with the youngster two times a week for 30 minute-sessions.
“She does have a moderate articulation delay. Some of the sounds can be considered developmental; she’s young still,” Pierce said.
“Every kid goes through their talking cute stage,” Amy Scharf said, adding that she knew Rachel’s speech was beyond the cute stage.
“What Rachel does is, she tongue-thrusts when she speaks, she produces a lot of her sounds interdentally; that’s between her teeth,” Pierce said.
As a result, the sounds of “s” sounds become “th.” She was producing the “l” sound between her teeth.
On this day, Pierce and Rachel are practicing the “l” sound.
Rachel repeats words after Pierce: lee, lie, low, hello, hollow, pillow, bellow, follow, yellow, swallow, cello, shallow. Pierce praises her for the way her tongue is placed.
“I don’t see it sticking out at all — good job,” she said.
Next, Rachel makes a small book by picking out words with pictures to finish the sentence, “Lion lies on . . .” Rachel picks a ladybug and pastes it on the page.
“Lion lies on a ladybug,” Pierce said. “Gosh, he’s going to squish it!”
There are other sentences to put together: “Lion leaps over a lawnmower. Do you think there are lawnmowers in the jungle for the lion to leap over?” Pierce asks.
Rachel shakes her head.
Part of the therapy is to learn how the tongue is acting and what it is supposed to do. There also is a lot of reinforcement and drilling of new habits.
“It’s hard. We have to lift for the ‘d,’ stick it out for the ‘the,’ and then go back for ‘s,’ ‘z’ and ‘d,’ right? That’s a lot of work for a tongue, isn’t it?,” Pierce asks.
It’s a lot of work, but because Pierce makes it fun, her pupils don’t realize how much they are learning, not only about speech, but about literacy. Putting sentences together and making simple books reinforces early literacy skills.
Lehman said giving speech therapy to pupils in kindergarten makes sense.
“Children at kindergarten and before kindergarten are more malleable, a lot more flexible to learn,” he said.
Rachel is getting another dose of foundational skills that will help her in reading and writing. “When they start writing, very often they write the way they speak, because of sounding out words,” Pierce said. “So if Rachel starts to write the way she’s speaking it, it’s going to affect her writing.”
Rachel brings Pierce her notebook every session, and she puts the day’s work and drills in the notebook. She also brings the notebook home to her parents so they can see what she’s working on and help her with drills.
Part of the goal of speech therapy is to become a better talker with parents, friends and teachers, so children know they’re not working hard just to please her, Pierce said.
Rachel’s parents used to think that the way she talked was cute. Now they see how cute she is, making sounds correctly.
“She is cute. She’s adorable,” Pierce said, “and she can continue to be cute — but not because of immature speech.”
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Intervention for a kindergartner works wonders in speech therapy
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