As her birthday was last month, Izzy had a four year check up. Alongside some other minor concerns, I brought up the possibility of speech therapy with the doctor because despite me mostly understanding her, it had become increasingly apparent to me the was not the case with everyone, including my own parents. Until now I figured, she was just a late talker, it didn’t matter, but as she’s facing pre-k in the fall I don’t want her to get discouraged or frustrated with learning if teachers struggle to figure out what she’s trying to say. Izzy is naturally very inquisitive and eager to please so I expect she’ll LOVE school — but then she also gets easily embarrassed and has a stubborn streak a mile long… (No thanks to her parents. 😛)

I knew she had a tongue tie but it never seemed to affect her so the pediatrician suggested we get a speech therapy evaluation first. And I’m very glad I did! The speech therapist immediately told me that was not her problem at all — in fact, her tongue is too often outside her teeth. 😂

Izzy was so great for the evaluator — saying everything requested eagerly. I just love her spirit! But the evaluator eventually told me that her speech issues were pervasive, pretty much all the blended sounds were affected (like “CH” and “SH”), and that she pretty much speaks on the level of a two and a half year old. Which, honestly, didn’t really bother me to learn — we were clearly in the right place and I know it’s no mark of intelligence. Heck, Korey has some pervasive speech issues from his childhood still and it’s clearly not affected him negatively even in a professional capacity. But it did prove to me something definitely needed done about it, where I was on the fence as to whether it was really even an issue. 😅

Because we wanted to be sure insurance would pay for sessions at that location, we went ahead and scheduled an appointment the very next day. It was really cool to be able to sit behind a one-way mirror and watch the appointment (as seen above.) I had actually done this done in college, so I knew what to expect. Super helpful though that I can bring the babies with me and they can play in a separate room and not distract anyone. 😂

Izzy did perfectly at her appointment too! She is very eager to please and loves one on one attention. The therapist had them play games that encouraged the repetition of certain sounds — this time it was all about the “beach” and playing “catch.” Since we’re going to the beach this month and she loves to play catch it is easy for me to work on these concepts at home too. 😊

I can already tell that she’s being more conscientious of how she says the words — the trick is trying not to make her feel too self-conscious. Personally I know that I shut down when I’m embarrassed and she is similar so I try not to call her out on it all the time, especially not in public.

Our next appointment isn’t until the middle of the month but I’m excited to see how her speech slowly starts changing. And to see her not have to repeat herself a thousand times to kids on the playground any more!