She speaks slooooowly

amother

Sun, Mar 31 2024, 3:09 am

Dd is just about to turn 4. We live in Israel. This year is her first year of big-girl gan, with 30-ish kids and 3 teachers in Hebrew. She was in Hebrew the last couple of years too, but in small private ganim with 10-ish kids and much less formal. This year I started noticing that she speaks very slowly, not stuttering, but taking a long time to get out what she wants to say. I was blaming the Hebrew which is definitely a challenge for her, but now I'm not sure it's just that.

She's also in her own world playing sometimes. But often not- she interacts and likes playing with others, too. Both in Hebrew and English, but English is definitely easier for her. Just kind of slow and oblivious sometimes. I have her signed up for an evaluation for speech therapy for what I thought was just a Hebrew issue, but now I'm hoping they could help with this, too. Her ganenet suggested it. She also wants her to be pulled out to work with a tutor next year and we have to see if she's approved for that. She said when she asks her a question, she knows the answer but takes a few minutes to say it. She just sits quietly and thinks a long while first.

I used to notice this more when she was very excited to tell me something. "You know what Mommy, I saw uh uh uh uh...." But now I think it's more often. She just starts talking and then realizes she can't remember what she wants to say or how to say it- I'm not sure which. I can't figure out if I never noticed before this year because she wasn't doing it or because she was younger so it was more expected. My question is has anyone had a kid like this and did it get better as the kid got older? Did it get worse? What did you do about it?

amother

Sun, Mar 31 2024, 8:39 am

amother Apricot wrote:

Unclear from your post: is she saying each word slowly, is she using a lot of fillers, is she thinking quietly for a long time and then getting the words out? All of the above?

Sorry about that. Not saying words slowly- everything else. She uses fillers like ummm and will also just think for like 2 minutes. I sometimes tell her to think and then say instead of umming because I thought that's better, so she can actually think. Is that true?

amother

Pumpkin

Sun, Mar 31 2024, 11:34 am

To me that sounds more like a processing issue then a speech issue. How is she with following multi-step directions in her native language? It could also be that she sometimes freezes up by playtime when the conversation is going to fast for her to follow.

*the playing herself is an observable behavior which does or doesn't mean anything. I wouldn't worry to much if she plays by herself happily not more than half the time. But get to the root cause of her language problem and you may see her more involved in group play.

amother

Sun, Mar 31 2024, 12:14 pm

amother Pumpkin wrote:

Multi-step directions in English I think she does fine. I asked her just now to draw a circle and then a square. She drew a circle and then looked at me. I said "Nice circle, now what are you going to draw?" She started drawing a big square quietly and after half a minute said, "I'm doing it around." And she drew a somewhat nice square (not the straightest lines but 4 of them) around the circle. Is that the kind of directions I should test with? I haven't noticed her not understanding or learning- just speaking takes her time and Hebrew seems to be taking her a while to catch on to. It seems like a word retrieval issue. Is that treated some way other than speech therapy?

I think you're right that she is intimidated by group play. She has 2 older sisters who play complicated games together and she often watches a long while and then sometimes asks to join. She likes playing with her 2yo sister where she says things like "For pretend I'll be the mommy and you'll be the baby." The slower pace of a 2yo definitely seems less intimidating for her. In gan she does play with one girl who it seems like randomly decided she's her friend at the beginning of the year and now they play together the whole time.

She was also pretty shocked by less-than-nice behaviors she's started seeing this year- like sticking out tongues and pinching cheeks. So I kind of feel like getting used to that existing has distracted her from learning Hebrew and big girl play as much as she maybe should have. That's why I'm hoping she's going to just catch up on the Hebrew but I haven't seen her slow speech improving too much.