As a teacher of students in the 10-12 range, a handful of my students go to speech therapy a few times a week. Mostly, the kids go for help with the articulation of the sounds of r, s, or phonic blends. Usually my students leave class near the end of the day when we have a study hall type of class.
I never went to speech therapy and although I communicate with our speech therapists often, I really don’t know much about it. Generally, I’d just like to know what your experience was like, but I also have specific questions.
Did you go to public (i.e., a speech therapist provided by your school) or private (your parents took you off campus to a private speech therapist)?
What did you do during speech therapy?
Did it help?
Did you like going?
How did you feel about leaving class?
Are you glad you did it?
Do you think your speech would have self-corrected if you had never gone?
I went in grade school, but I don’t really know what for (maybe they told me once, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention). I know it was in the school, and I didn’t mind going, but I don’t have answers for the other questions.
Another “I remember going, but I don’t remember much about it” here. I know I was done about halfway through second grade, so I was really just too young to remember much. Sorry.
It was in Elementary school and I don’t remember too well
Did you go to public (i.e., a speech therapist provided by your school) or private (your parents took you off campus to a private speech therapist)?
Public school
What did you do during speech therapy?
Mainly I remember playing board games or something like that but before you took a turn you had to say a word rightly.
Did it help?
Yes. I used to turn r’s into w’s but now I can say r and only very rarely change r into w and can correct it right away.
Did you like going?
yes
How did you feel about leaving class?
It was fun. Doesn’t every 10-year-old kid want an excuse to leave class?
Are you glad you did it?
I guess so. I can say r now. I don’t remember it ever being a problem.
Do you think your speech would have self-corrected if you had never gone?
no idea.
I don’t really remember much about it. There was always a few of us in there at a time. The only other person I remember was in there because she was partially deaf and couldn’t talk right.
Same here. All I remember that it was done through the school, she was a nice lady with brown hair & glasses, and I had alot of trouble pronouncing the “th” sound.
I remember going when I was in early grade school or kindergarten, but I can’t recall the specifics of what actually happened. I used to say the “S” sound out of the side of my mouth, like from in front of my molars. I can’t even imagine speaking like that now, it seems so foreign to me.
1st grade. Apparently I had a slight lisp (lithp?) on “th” vs “s” sounds. I remember being really surprised that I wasn’t saying stuff right, then shortly ‘graduating’ after a couple of sessions. I suppose I would have figured it out on my own without help, but I’m not troubled that I was in that program in the first place.
I have the “s” out of the sides of my mouth thing, too. (Like Sylvester saying “Suffering Succotash!”) I still do it, so I guess it didn’t take. The problem is that I don’t hear it when I do it, unless I’m listening to a recording of my voice. It got worse when I had my back molars taken out last year.
I hate it. I have a friend who is a speech therapist, and I’ve been thinking about asking her to help me. But I’m embarrassed to do so, and besides I couldn’t afford to pay her.
**Did you go to public (i.e., a speech therapist provided by your school) or private (your parents took you off campus to a private speech therapist)?**Public school provided
What did you do during speech therapy? I was in first grade, so I only remember some of it. I shared sessions with another girl in my class, since we both had a lisp. We would talk a lot–for example, she’d ask us to tell her what we did over the weekend so we’d have to practice speaking “correctly.” I remember some weird plastic device that kind of hooked around my face, so that the sounds coming out of my mouth went directly to my ear, making it easier for me to hear my lisp. I also remember having homework. I don’t remember what the homework consisted of, some kind of verbal exercise with my parents, but I do remember the sticker I got as a reward every night for doing it! Mostly it was all just talking, practicing making the sounds the correct way.
Did it help? Yeth. I mean Yes.
Did you like going? Yep. It was fun…got to get out of class. And hey, stickers!
How did you feel about leaving class? Didn’t mind a bit–and I was a nerd who liked school.
Are you glad you did it? Yes.
Do you think your speech would have self-corrected if you had never gone? I guess probably yes…you don’t see many adults going around with a lisp. But maybe that’s because it gets caught early by these school programs before it becomes too entrenched. Who knows?
I went for part of the year in 5th grade, but I don’t remember much about it now. I can’t even remember why I had to go, but I’m assuming it helped since I didn’t even have to go for the whole year.
I think I went either during lunch or study hall, and there were two other kids in the group. I remember there being some educational type board games, but I can’t recall anything more specific than that. I think I felt a bit embarassed about having to go, but it’s not like anyone ever made fun of me or anything. I don’t know if the problem would have self-corrected or not. I would assume so, but who knows.
Did you go to public (i.e., a speech therapist provided by your school) or private (your parents took you off campus to a private speech therapist)?
Public school
What did you do during speech therapy?
I vaguely remember listening to some kind of recording sometimes. I also remember a puppet that she’d use to show us how to work our lips. It was green. I also have a hazy memory of some kinda headphones.
Did it help?
I guess. Any speech problem I had was apparently mild considering I was only in therapy once a week for maybe half an hour.
Did you like going?
I don’t remember hating it. The SLP was cool and all. I was in kindergarten so I don’t remember much. I do remember having a crush on Rodney, the little dark haired chubby boy that was in speech class with me. (My taste in men was set pretty early on.)
How did you feel about leaving class?
I don’t remember. I guess I was ok with it. I wasn’t the type to suffer in silence so I probably would have said something if I didn’t like it.
Are you glad you did it?
Sure, I guess.
Do you think your speech would have self-corrected if you had never gone?
I don’t know. The only thing I remember about speech was being told I was having trouble with my s’s and p’s.
Deaf kid checking in! I had 15 (eek) years of speech therapy from age 3 (early intervention) to senior year of high school. In EI preschool, I had spoken language therapy . Caught up pretty fast. I don’t remember too much about language therapy, as I was very young. However, from second to high school grad, I had speech where I had to work on articulation, pitch, volumne, etc Effing boring and pointless, as I still talk like a deafie and I still have trouble modulating my voice…
I clearly remember being in the speech therapy room learning how to say the “th” sound . Seems to be a pretty universal experiance for dhh kids. It was kind of fun in elementary school. My speech therapist and I would practice my part in class plays. But then it got super fucking boring as I knew how to articulate, but the other stuff like pitch volumne etc was very hard. I don’t think there’s an effective way to teach a deaf kid how to controll pitch and volumne. I hated hated hated hated speech therapy. I am glad I can speak and have sophsicated spoken language, but the mechanics of speech were just so boring. I will never speak like a hearing person.
I went through public school for a few weeks due to difficulties with the letter S.
It was quite pointless, as my lisp was due to having knocked out my top front 4 baby teeth and bottom 2 baby teeth in a swingset accident.
If I may answer for my daughter who just went through speech therapy last year.
She was not quite four, so not in school yet. She wasn’t bad enough to qualify for services through the public pre-school services, so we went with a private therapist.
She had problems especially with her k and g sounds, that made them sound like t and d sounds. The speech therapist worked on this by holding a tongue depresser in her mouth to get her tongue in the correct position for making the sounds. Once she was able to do it without the tongue depresser it involved just a lot of repitition of the sounds.
It helped immensely. She would get very frustrated because even we had trouble understanding her and with other people it was even worse.
She liked going and wants to go back. It was like playing games.
N/A
I don’t know about her, but we are definitely happy with the results.
I am sure at some point down the road she may have tried to correct it on her own. We didn’t want to go through years of her struggling to be understood to find out.
Did you go to public (i.e., a speech therapist provided by your school) or private (your parents took you off campus to a private speech therapist)?
-Chicago public schols in the 60s
What did you do during speech therapy?
-Don’t remember much other than my problem was with "r"s.
Did it help?
-yes
Did you like going?
-Don’t remember feeling one way or the other. I was just a kid, doing what my parents and teachers told me to do.
How did you feel about leaving class?
-Certainly no stigma. Perhaps a small feeling of getting to do something other kids didn’t.
Are you glad you did it?
-Sure.
Do you think your speech would have self-corrected if you had never gone?
-Don’t know, but I assume probably eventually. Not necessarily here or there, but I was on my college debate team, and worked successfully as a litigator and judge.
I went to speech therapy for two weeks in first grade because we’d just moved to Chicago from Los Angeles and they thought my accent odd so I was sent to speech class. That ended when my mom found out about it, and here I am all these years later and I’m a chronic Chicago accent person, go figure.
My situation was a bit different (how many times will I have to say that, in my lifetime I wonder).
It was the sixties and my eldest sister had a slight speech problem, so typically my mother enrolled all of us (three sisters) in elocution lessons. (She did everything en masse: skating, swimming, ballet, etc). In our elocution lessons we learned to memorize and recite poems and enunciate clearly.
The reward for that was to attend various music festivals that also had contests in recitation and public speaking. Each of us won several medals.
In retrospect I am sincerely grateful for that training - I’m often told that I’m well-spoken and I have no doubt it came from that early confidence building program.
I remember going with several kids and playing board games designed to force us to practice speaking things we had trouble with.
I only had trouble distinguishing between the s sound and the th sound. Everything came out as either one or the other but I don’t recall which. I’ve had people remark that I have a unique way of speaking and that they just enjoy hearing me say things. But I think it’s more a word choice and way of saying thing choice, not necessarily something I learned in speech. But I guess nobody would say that if I couldn’t make my TH sound.
Not especially.
I am certain I only did speech in my elementary school, grades 1-3, and I only specifically recall going in first grade. So it was something I always did and it seemed natural. I was aware only a few of us got to leave class but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to care.
I’ve been thinking about speech therapy lately because my dad suffered brain trauma and has been doing daily speech therapy. It made me wonder if it’s the same skill set. Not intending to offend any speech therapists, what I did seemed so unimpressive both for me and the therapist in comparison. We mastered the th sound, but I can’t help but conclude I probably would have figured it out on my own eventually.
I went right before I graduated from college at age 23. I had to pass a speech test in order to get my teaching certificate. Even though nobody had ever mentioned it to me before in my whole life, the little undergraduate girl who administered the test decided I had a lisp and failed me. So, in addition to the student teaching and seminar courses that typically make up the last semester of getting a teaching degree, I reported to the speech lab a couple times a week to repeat “s” words into a microphone.