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Thursday, March 19, 2009

My New England Son's "Speech Problem"

Today was my younger son's (YS) Early Intervention speech evaluation. A speech therapist, a specialist in child development, and a social worker all conducted the evaluation. They confirmed that they were there to investigate my concern about YS's articulation. Good thing I called them because their results were very startling to me. Their breakthrough diagnosis happened right after the speech therapist held up a yellow car and asked YS what it was.

YS: It's a yellow cah.
Alex Elliot (AE): See that's exactly what I'm talking about! He's not articulating car correctly.
Speech Therapist (ST) (laughing): Yes, he has been dropping his "r's".
AE: Exactly! He's not articulating correctly.
ST: And he also adds r's to certain words.
AE: That's right!
Everyone started laughing.
AE (horrified): Does he have a Massachusetts accent?
ST: Yes he does!

Turns out the articulation problem isn't an articulation problem at all. It is really a Massachusetts accent! (The Big Giraffe insists that a Massachusetts accent is an articulation problem.) He also replaces l's with w's in some words, so he'll say "wollilop" instead of lollipop but will correctly say the word "lion." I was told that this is normal for his age. The speech therapist is coming back in two weeks to conduct a final articulation test, but she said that he seems absolutely fine. I think given a choice between speech from the land of "da bearss" and speech from the lack of "wicked pissahs," the Big Giraffe prefers the latter. Don't worry, Big Giraffe, we can all still hear your Long Island accent!

Of course, YS is not the only one growing up and having new experiences. The Big Giraffe and I went to a kindergarten readiness meeting at the public preschool this evening. It was for our older son (OS), not for us, which is fortunate. It is very clear that neither the Big Giraffe nor I would be ready for kindergarten if we had to start this fall. Show me a writing and craft table and hands down I would choose to play with blocks or dressup. Guess it's a good thing I was grandfathered in with my previous kindgergarten experience.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Growing up in Newr England is hahd.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:20 PM   7 comments
7 Comments:

  • At 3/19/2009 9:43 PM, Blogger Kami said…

    OH my word, thanks for the laugh! Isn't it nice to know it's not a problem at all? Of course, it sounds like your husband disagrees....

    :)

     

  • At 3/20/2009 12:34 AM, Blogger Heather said…

    Hilarious!

     

  • At 3/20/2009 7:52 AM, Blogger Goofball said…

    that's so funny

    our Belgian friends in the Netherlands also try to avoid their kids to adopt a dutch accent in vain and so does my brother-in-law who currently lives in a region with a totally different dialect then where he's from.

    but they all seem to fail: kids pick up the local accents

     

  • At 3/20/2009 12:27 PM, Blogger Goddess in Progress said…

    Oh man... yet another reason to move back home to Chicago. Not that you and I have thick ones growing up in the north 'burbs, but my aunts on the South Side... they know the right name for fizzy drinks. Pop!!

     

  • At 3/20/2009 3:17 PM, Blogger skiplovey said…

    That's adorable. And what a relief right?

     

  • At 3/21/2009 6:45 PM, Blogger Count Mockula said…

    I laughed and had to share this.

     

  • At 3/22/2009 4:26 PM, Anonymous selfmademom said…

    hilarious. and I'm totally with your husband. better to say cah than cayr (Chicago accent.)

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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