Week four: My major!

“Mommy, but I weally wanted dat!” “Uncle Jonnie, when tan Tarly tum over to pway?” Do we take the way we speak for granted? Is it easy for adults to accept that children do ‘speak’ this way quite often when they are young? Do they out grow it, or do we just think, ‘they’ll grow out of it’ when they get older?

Listening to the way people, mostly children speak has always interested me. I like to watch the parents reaction or lack there of, to the mispronounced words. Do the parents notice or care if there is a problem? Do they know it can be easily fixed with a little bit of consistent work?

 I am the second to the oldest out of ten children. I wonder if my mom was so overwhelmed with all the kids that she didn’t really know quite how to handle it most of the time. However, I am glad that I was one of ‘the older ones.’ My youngest sister, Lisa, was born in February of 1983. She was only five years old when I married Jon. I remember that she could not pronounce her words properly. She had a slight lisp and she just couldn’t say her ‘k’ sounds or the words that began with ‘th’. The speech problem was evident with the majority of my younger siblings, but Lisa stood out to me. She was really trying hard to communicate with us. I remember countless times that Jon and I would sing the alphabet with her for hours while she was trying to say the letters properly. She wanted to do it the right way. That gave me more motivation to keep working with her. We would try various games to try to get her to make the correct sound for each letter or word. It slowly started to payoff. Jon and I set a goal that Lisa would be speaking properly before kindergarten started. Sure enough, just after a couple of months, she had finally got it. It was such an achievement for her; I remember how good it felt to see Lisa’s excitement. I was so proud of her hard work.

Over the years when Jon and I had our girls, we noticed that when they started talking, they had a hard time pronouncing a lot of the same words that Lisa had struggled with. So we immediately started working with them to say them correctly. It really helped them that we were there to help them out right away. I must admit that they all speak rather well.

Just this last year my family went to supper with Lisa’s family, (she is married with 2 little boys) As we were chatting, she told me that she remembered the countless hours that Jon and I were with her when she was five. She thanked me for helping her overcome her speech problems. I couldn’t believe that she remembered it! The greatest compliment was when she told me that she thought I could be a decent speech therapist.

A lot of our nieces and nephews couldn’t pronounce similar words properly, just by habit I found myself working with them as they spoke to me. If they couldn’t pronounce a word, I would say it with them over and over until they got it.  I love to see the little children conquer the words they had trouble with, they just radiate with pride.

My goal to be a speech therapist will be complete after I go through the education program. I need to get my bachelors degree in Education; I will basically earn a teaching degree. After that point, I need to continue with school to earn a Masters degree in Speech Therapy. Because I am going to specialize in this area, my degree will also allow me to work with people who have been hospitalized with disabilities or injuries that require them to learn how to talk again. I hope I will be able to give confidence to those who have struggled with it, due to their speech problems.

Sometimes I second guess my major due to some of the questions that lurk around it, such as; is there really anything to be concerned with and do I have what it takes to be successful; patience, kindness and skill?