Malika
Well-Known Member
I'd appreciate some input/insight about the role of speech therapists.
After many months on a waiting list, a speech therapist finally had a space free and we saw her the first time this afternoon. Rather a surreal experience. A nice, timid lady in grey who proceeded to ask J to repeat some sounds and then sentences, which he did. She then showed him some rather boring-looking cards in black and white and asked him questions about them. At which point he got bored, got up and started wandering around the room, touching this and that. We called him back but to no avail... At which point the speech therapist looked at me helplessly and said "I don't think this is going to work", saying that she thought he needed to be helped by a psychologist for his hyperactivity rather than a speech therapist... She also said she felt J didn't like her and she wasn't sure how to deal with him! I was rather taken aback by her lack of confidence and understanding that she needed to "engage" his interest and also by the fact that she was taking his moving around and not sitting talking to her personally.... I asked her if she had ever worked with hyperactive children and she said no... Anyway, after we had talked a bit and I had tried to say she might try engaging with him, she called him over in a kind voice and he accepted to come over to her and then did what she asked with her cards... (putting a story in sequence and asking questions about them). She said at the end she would give it a go for a few weeks and see whether they could work together.
It was both our medical doctor and the psychiatrist who recommended that J see a speech therapist. I am now confused as to why and how, if at all, a speech therapist can help a child with ADHD. He clearly has peculiarities in his use of language - which are a bit difficult to explain but I would say lay mainly in his lack of concrete, rational thinking (on the way to her, for example, J started shouting out of the window "Sirène! Sirène!" I asked who it was. A friend he said... A little girl? No, he said, Sirène is a crocodile who lives in the river.... his conversations are often like this...) - but is this kind of thing appropriate territory for a speech therapist. Was it just a bad fit, a lack of chemistry with this particular lady, or would I find such an approach everywhere?
All illumination gratefully received!
After many months on a waiting list, a speech therapist finally had a space free and we saw her the first time this afternoon. Rather a surreal experience. A nice, timid lady in grey who proceeded to ask J to repeat some sounds and then sentences, which he did. She then showed him some rather boring-looking cards in black and white and asked him questions about them. At which point he got bored, got up and started wandering around the room, touching this and that. We called him back but to no avail... At which point the speech therapist looked at me helplessly and said "I don't think this is going to work", saying that she thought he needed to be helped by a psychologist for his hyperactivity rather than a speech therapist... She also said she felt J didn't like her and she wasn't sure how to deal with him! I was rather taken aback by her lack of confidence and understanding that she needed to "engage" his interest and also by the fact that she was taking his moving around and not sitting talking to her personally.... I asked her if she had ever worked with hyperactive children and she said no... Anyway, after we had talked a bit and I had tried to say she might try engaging with him, she called him over in a kind voice and he accepted to come over to her and then did what she asked with her cards... (putting a story in sequence and asking questions about them). She said at the end she would give it a go for a few weeks and see whether they could work together.
It was both our medical doctor and the psychiatrist who recommended that J see a speech therapist. I am now confused as to why and how, if at all, a speech therapist can help a child with ADHD. He clearly has peculiarities in his use of language - which are a bit difficult to explain but I would say lay mainly in his lack of concrete, rational thinking (on the way to her, for example, J started shouting out of the window "Sirène! Sirène!" I asked who it was. A friend he said... A little girl? No, he said, Sirène is a crocodile who lives in the river.... his conversations are often like this...) - but is this kind of thing appropriate territory for a speech therapist. Was it just a bad fit, a lack of chemistry with this particular lady, or would I find such an approach everywhere?
All illumination gratefully received!