Michael was initially seen at The Scottish Rite Clinic For Childhood Language Disorders, Kansas City, Missouri, when he was three years old. Parental concerns were expressed regarding his inability to produce sounds correctly. Therapy was recommended, and Michael was referred to his local school in Windsor, Missouri. Michael returned to the clinic one year later and had evidenced some improvement in his articulation skills, but his conversational speech was very unintelligible since he did not produce the initial consonant sounds of words. He had begun to display behaviors of frustration when someone did not understand him. Due to the distance his family had to drive, short-term therapy for an hour every two weeks was recommended at the Scottish Rite Clinic.

Therapy emphasized the “idea” of specific words needing a consonant sound at the beginning. A toy train was used in therapy along with the analogy of the engine at the beginning of the train being like the sound at the beginning of the word. If Michael produced the consonant sound at the beginning of the word, he was allowed to play with the train. The engine with its conductor was removed from the table if the word was produced without a consonant sound at the beginning. After two sessions, Michael was able to produce a consonant sound at the beginning of words. The intelligibility of his conversational speech greatly increased and his frustration decreased as he was able to be understood.

Thanks to the Kansas City Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders, Michael is now able to communicate much more effectively. His family is very pleased and reports how other people have also noticed Michael’s significant improvement.

Reprinted from the Scottish Rite Herald, Spring 1997, Valley of Kansas City, MO