# Prepare for a series of Teacher meetings on 4yo



## Leo (Feb 7, 2006)

Hi,
Looking for some advice concerning my 4yo. and her teacher's complications. The teacher has some series of problems with my child's tongue thrust difficulties. And is pushing for her to go to the school's speech therapist. It started off with a simple pronunciation issue, which we have been aware of, as well as put her in speech for, which is now extending into more issues. 

We are now going to another school's speech evaluation and teacher meeting, then another meeting on the class in particular. I want to be well prepared for so.....

Since her teacher has raised her concerns my daughter is now coming home stuttering, and when not stuttering unintentionally, she is spending considerable amount of time just pronouncing the first letter of each word. As well as displaying behavioral problems, bullying others on their speech patterns, of which we discussed with her how at school they make speak in that manner, but at home, we accept others, which has helped but raised red flags nonetheless.

Now the teacher has sent home an evaluation on how she doesn't understand language, a host of problems in conforming linguistically, as well as other issues such as not displaying an interest in learning, lack of curiosity, doesn't appreciate books, and math(counting as well as quantifying). As well as delays in conforming to particular social norms(mainly linguistically). 

My daughter loves to read(we limit her to three books at bedtime), count(does simple addition, subtraction), and enjoys experiencing hands on learning with science experiments, robotics(she made a bug recently) and models on say anatomy, the universe, etc.

I am concerned about the teacher projecting personal problems onto the classroom, and this large disparity between school and home perspectives. I have talked to my daughter about school environment, she doesn't have any particular concerns barring one boy who seems troubled.
I've never encountered a teacher this pushy on this subject before, as well as such a disparity. What do you recommend?


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## NEfarmgirl (Jan 27, 2009)

Have you discussed the speech issue with your daughter's doctor and what did they say about it? It is common for younger kids to have a difficult time pronouncing words and if she has a teacher that is on her all of the time, it will make things worse. I think the teacher probably doesn't need to be working with young kids. I would speak to your child's doctor and get their perspective on the situation before meeting with the teacher to have information to present to the teacher. If your doctor agrees there might be an issue then follow through, but if it is a developmental issue time will resolve it. Our 5 year old has been battling speech problems but we chose to work with him and it is getting better. My mom in law was a kindergarten teacher and she said it is a pretty common issue to see and time generally will fix it. The harder someone works with a child to force them to speak correctly can damage their self esteem. If tongue thrust is an issue, there is a retainer that can be used to train the person the proper placement of the tongue and it retrains it. There are also exercises that can be done to help retrain the tongue to stay in proper position.


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## SLFarmMI (Feb 21, 2013)

Leo said:


> Hi,
> Looking for some advice concerning my 4yo. and her teacher's complications. The teacher has some series of problems with my child's tongue thrust difficulties. And is pushing for her to go to the school's speech therapist. It started off with a simple pronunciation issue, which we have been aware of, as well as put her in speech for, which is now extending into more issues.
> 
> We are now going to another school's speech evaluation and teacher meeting, then another meeting on the class in particular. I want to be well prepared for so.....
> ...


I would recommend talking to the speech pathologist. They are the ones with the specialized training. We teachers just don't have the intensive training that they do. See if your speech pathologist would be willing to do an informal screening on your daughter to determine if a full evaluation is warranted. I know our speech pathologist at work does screenings all the time. A screening could alleviate any concerns the teacher is having as well as let you know if there may be an underlying problem.


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## Leo (Feb 7, 2006)

> *I'm a little confused. Has there been a speech and language evaluation from the speech pathologist? Or is this a meeting to request your permission for an evaluation?*


There have been so many evaluations it's tiring. So several now. She has had an speech as well as cognitive, visual, and hearing evaluations at my insistence from 1 to 2yo, some help then(she was born with a deformity that affected the positions of her eye, and ear, as well as balance, and some sensory integration), and now at 4yo at the teacher's insistence.

Also, I've found them to be subjective in terms of who is doing the testing, from not really any problems(she'll grow out of it), to 30% delay but let's "test again" as she didn't cross that threshold for funding yet. (This particular tester's words). With this last one, it was the teacher pushing, along with the vice-principle(as she said, she met someone who she thought needed speech in college, so thought my daughter should do it too.) She has difficulty with th, ch, sh, d, g, l and r, specifically; although some are supposed to be normal delays for a four year old.



> *It is possible (it would be worth asking your daughter) that the teacher is unintentionally or intentionally drawing your daughter's attention to her speech so much that she is now becoming overly concerned about how she speaks. Young children often stutter when they are nervous. *


 Definitely. I noticed that with fall break, her stuttering lessened, and she spoke more fluently. She naturally wants to mimic my speech, and grammar without any noting on my part, and will self-correct when she's not too excited or nervous.



> *Is this the teacher's evaluation or one from the speech pathologist?*


Teacher.
We have another meeting with the school's speech pathologist on her re-evaluation, so yet to see the "findings."


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## CountryMom22 (Nov 27, 2014)

Both of my children had speech/cognitive issues. It sounds like you re doing everything you can. To me, based on the teacher's comments about her not liking to read etc, if you know this to not be the case at home, or in other environments, then I think the teacher is either correcting her too much, and making her self conscious or just trying to pass the buck and let someone else deal with this childs speech issues.

Just my two cents as that is what happened with one of my kids. The teacher didn't want to deal with the "special ed" kids, but it was her year to have them in her classroom. My other son, who had the other teacher, had a much more positive experience.

Stick to your guns. If your daughter needs extra help, I'm sure you'll see that she gets it. If it is a problem with the teacher, move her into another class.

Good luck.


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## rxkeith (Apr 13, 2009)

you may want to consider home schooling. sounds like she is doing better at home than in pre school. school can be a tough learning environment for kids that are challenged in some way. so much depends on teachers ability or inability to teach them. my wife and i know families with special needs kids. some are mainstreamed, others are homeschooled. i think the homeschooled kids, and parents are under much less pressure, and not having to worry about their child keeping up. they can't keep up. it like running a race with ankle weights on. we have an eleven year old that is homeschooled. he is a normal kid.

here in michigan, you can homeschool, but your child can still be involved in some school activities or services. just something to consider.


keith


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

I was labeled as having a speech problem when I was in grade school -- trips to speech therapists just made me so self conscious that it pushed me into stuttering which then led to panic attacks when I had to speak in front of people. 

Eventually in my 20's I got over it, no problems with my speech whatsoever. 
Unless you notice a real physical problem please don't subject your kids to these so called 'Experts'


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

Good work!


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## motherhenshow (Apr 7, 2015)

"Speech" problems are frequent in my family. We noticed that until age 8 or 9, the tongue was too large to pronounce some sounds.
Teachers can help or hurt. Act accordingly.


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## 92utownxj (Sep 13, 2013)

Your child is only 4. Plenty of time to work things out. If it were my child they would have been out of that teachers class/school yesterday. Some teachers just shouldn't be teachers. I've seen it firsthand. They cause many problems for young kids. 

When I was in elementary school I had trouble saying s,r,l, th, bag/beg, etc. Teachers recognized it, but they didn't say anything to me about it. I eventually went to the school's speech pathologist regularly, but they made it so it wasn't a big deal at all. It was like a treat to get out of class for awhile. I'm thankful for the help then, and now I speak perfectly. The pathologist was great though, excellent with kids, and I still remember her.

You know what's best for you child. Don't be quick to seek a label for a problem. Don't let teachers make things worse either.


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## motherhenshow (Apr 7, 2015)

Generally, unless there are issues with hearing, children grow into their tongues just fine. The trick is not to let the child feel self conscious about it.
As a child I had pronounciation issues with many sounds. The "r" sound was the worst, and I went out of my way not to use words with that sound. It was extremely stressful for me.
I have excellent diction now. Some of my kids have issues, they will grow out of them. No worries!!!!! 4 is way too young to be concerned. I would cancel the meeting, on the grounds of lack of importance.


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