This assignment has been an exciting yet challenging journey for several reasons. First of all, it is my own personal journey (story) of my family. In other words, this story tells of the journey I am embarking on with my own daughter, who is thirty-six months old. Some of the information has been altered for privacy reasons, but the story is reflective of our journey with my three year old and her development from birth to the present. Secondly, it is exciting because I get to share my own personal experiences. I am able to apply what I am learning to influence my own child's development. Lastly, there is irony in knowing and learning about language development and having my three year old about to start speech therapy. That irony represents my challenges about what the future will be for my daughter. I believe we have done everything right. I did everything and anything during my pregnancy that would constitute being healthy. Since the day she was born we have been reading to her. As a matter of fact, she LOVES being read to AND "reading" to us. We had her assessed approximately six months prior to her third birthday when we believed she may have some sound production difficulty, and she tested age appropriate. Yet, she will begin speech therapy in two weeks since she tested below average at the assessment we asked for when she turned three about a month ago. I feel as if I failed my daughter, especially since I am an infant development specialist and I am "suppose" to know how to help a child develop on target.
With all of that being said, the question(s) I have for all of you are questions related to school age speech/language development. Since I have years of experience with the 0-3 population and very little with school age children,
(1) Have any of you worked with school age children with reading difficulties which stemmed from speech/language challenges or disorders as a toddler?
(2) If yes to question 1, what kind(s) of intervention(s) was put in place? And, what was the outcome(s)?
I am attaching my introduction to the blog. Professor has asked to attach a second section, but the section I want to attach is this week's assignment. At this point, I do not have any of that yet finished. This week is the most difficult for me to complete, because (1) I have the least experience with this age and, more importantly (2) I am hoping that with your answers to my questions above, I will be able to formulate a more appropriate journey influenced by all of your experiences and by what is available in the readings and other available resources.
Thank you so very much for your time and feedback. This journey is real for me, and I am grateful for your thoughts and time.