Pete's doing really well with his speech therapist: it appears that he can control the stuttering when he concentrates on it! Every week her reports say that he is nearly completely "fluent" the whole time he's with her playing games, reading stories, and so on. His teacher also says that when they're doing one-on-one reading time, he rarely stutters. That suggests to all of us that when he's focused on speaking smoothly, he can do it, but that he is usually so caught up in whatever he's doing that he rushes and gets "bumpy." The speech therapist always sends him home with an activity that they did (like a card game or a series of pictures that tell a story) and we do them together. I do notice that he stutters less when we're doing those things, as if he just shifts into "speech therapy mode." That's very encouraging to me. He is also still showing no sign of embarrassment or frustration about it, for which I'm very grateful.
Meanwhile, he's still an absolute string-bean. I brought home some size XS (4–5) pants for him today, and they were too big. He's going to be 7 in April! Oh, I can't wait until shorts season.
Oh, I love the Pete stories! Prob'ly because I have my very own string bean at home that Pete reminds me of. I just know they'd be great friends.
Posted by: Janeen | January 31, 2006 at 08:13 PM