Speech with Ms. Gold

Julia has been meeting with a Speech Therapist named Kim Gold since October.  She has worked diligently on her 'r' sounds and placing her tongue in the correct places as she speaks the sounds and words.  As we've worked on it at home, Julia has been very private about her practice times.  She will only work on them with me and we spent time many nights with her speech folder creating fun games and timed lists to see how fast we can read the words (possibly not a great idea for sound perfection, but made her giggle and gave it some fun rather than just reading the words and kept her motivated as she asked for it a lot).  Julia would hide the folder or stop practicing if anyone else walked in the room.

She didn't like us talking about it and was self-conscious about it in front her friends.  Two of her friends go with another teacher for things they are working on academically.  Julia loved meeting with Mrs. Gold each Wednesday, but didn't like being called out on it.  The two friends would often call out, "Julia, your teacher is here!"  which brought attention to the fact that she was the only one leaving to work with her.  She felt teased about it and we talked about it at home.  She became confident and her speech changed considerably.  She's doing an amazing job speaking all her 'r' sounds.

This past Wednesday was her last session with Mrs. Gold.  It had been anticipated that Julia would be in speech for at least a year to a year and a half or more.  She completed all her speech processes in 7 months with full capabilities of speaking 'r' sounds in beginning, middle, and ending sounds within sentences and phrases.  We are so proud of all her work and so thankful to Mrs. Gold.