Diary Of An SLP: I Don’t Care That Your Kid Knows Their Colors, Shapes, and ABCs
One of my biggest pet peeves as a Speech-Language Pathologist is when people think that a child who knows their numbers, colors, shapes and letters, is NOT behind and doesn’t need Speech Therapy. I see this all the time with parents and even with special education teachers and administrators.
As an SLP, I am concerned with how effective (the word we use as clinicians is “functional”) your child’s communication is.
These are the things I am most concerned about as an SLP when it comes to your child’s speech and language skills:
Can your child effectively and consistently tell you what they want or need?
Can your child ask for help?
Can your child tell you when they are in pain?
Is your child able to recount an experience?
Is your child able to tell you about what happened to them when you weren’t there?
Most children are able to do all of these relatively well by preschool and kindergarten. If your child does not have a reliable communication system, whether it’s verbal speech, sign language, AAC or something else, to communicate in these very important scenarios, I would recommend looking into getting a Speech and Language evaluation. These skills are vital and these are all things I work on with children in Speech Therapy.
If your child is ever in an accident or hurt and you’re not there, we would hope they would be able to communicate to you what happened. In order to reduce frustration and meltdowns, it is so helpful if kids are able to communicate what it is that they want or need. These are the most important skills I work on with kids in speech therapy, and if your child is struggling with these skills due to a speech and language delay, please contact a Speech-Language Pathologist for help!
And don’t get me wrong, obviously there is a time and place for children to learn their colors, shapes and ABCs. But those skills are not the most important, especially in early childhood, and there is plenty of time for learning those in school.
Another thing that comes to my mind on this topic is how many Autistic children love to learn their shapes, colors, numbers, ABCs and more. If you have an Autistic child who knows lots of words but is not using them effectively or “functionally” to communicate, reach out to a Speech-Language Pathologist who specializes in Autism. Check out my previous post about Gestalt Language Processing as it is how many Autistic children learn to communicate.
