I've been working with her, but she is...less easy...to work with than Alexander (who had the same problem). I showed him "One Cool Trick" (holding down the front of his tongue while he made /k/ sounds to prevent him from using the tip of his tongue to say /t/ instead) and he "Understood The Assignment" (that is, he voluntarily began to use his finger whenever he needed to say /k/).
"I wanna bite!" he'd say.
"You want a bite?" I'd repeat.
"No! I wanna biiiiiiKe," he'd say, sticking his little finger on his tongue at just the right moment to make that /k/.
And then eventually we prompted him to say it without his finger in his mouth and—presto!—the boy had /t/ and /k/ figured out (and everyone could understand him much better).
I've been trying this with Phoebe but she puts her finger in her mouth and then still uses the tip of her tongue to make a /t/ sound. And when I have her try it with my finger in her mouth she either gags or bites me, which is...neat.
We have been making slow progress and she even will sometimes naturally say /k/ in phrases like "Thank you." Really anything that has a /kju/ sound in the middle...she can say /k/ then. So I know it's possible for her to make that sound.
But I am personally highly motivated to help her figure out at least that distinction by the time she has her next well-child visit because our doctor (1) does not really like the idea of homeschooling and (2) was super concerned that Phoebe's language is behind because she probably doesn't ever get to talk to anyone outside of our family and so we simply haven't noticed that's she's unintelligible.
And I was like, "Weird, because objectively—as a linguist—I am zero percent worried about her speech at this point. And she actually does speak to people outside of our immediate family. And they do understand her (sometimes) and, honestly, compared to the other three-year-olds in her church class...she is rocking the whole language development scene."
And I'm just a little bit not interested in figuring out speech therapy...so I told the doctor we'd just work on it at home. Because I'm a linguist (because, well, I'm a linguist).
And I fixed Alexander. What would be so different about Phoebe?
Well...the fact that she's...Phoebe.
Phoebe is lovely, but she's got a little more...spunk...than Alexander had at that age.
Not only will she gag or bite me—she'll flat out tell me no.
(Weird, right?)
But I've been making her practice a little bit every day, trying to come up with minimal pairs that she has to clarify by choosing to make the /k/ sound. I've looked into other techniques to help someone produce a /k/ sound because my "One Cool Trick" was a "One Tool" dud. One of the other methods is to practice /k/ sounds while lying on your back because gravity is so powerful that it makes it more difficult to thrust the tongue forward to produce a /t/ sound (thus also making it easier to produce a /k/ sound with the back of the tongue).
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about gravity, but...evidently I should...because just changing positions can change how much energy it takes to talk...and then there are also swimming drills where you purposely do them on your back because of how gravity makes you use your legs differently.
Yeah. Gravity is weird.
Phoebe loves her morning snuggles so I turned her snuggle time into a speech therapy session this morning.
"Oooh! Let's try making /k/ sounds while we're lying on our backs!" I suggested, like, wow, this is going to be so fun. Phoebe was not fooled.
"No, thanks," she said.
So, already desperate for her to just give in and try saying a few k's I casually said, "That's too bad. Because the doctor said if you don't learn how to say your /k/ you will have to go in for an appointment so they can help fix your /k/ problem. And I don't really know how they do that at the doctor, like, I dunno if it requires a shot or anything like that, but..."
"K!" Phoebe said, sticking her whole hand in her mouth to keep her tongue from flapping. "K! K! K! K!"
"Oh, you can say K!" I said.
"Yeah. I tan."
"You tan?" I asked. "Like, outside? In the sun?"
"Noooo! I...can!" she gagged.
"That's good to know!" I said. "Because if we figure it out at home then we don't have to go see a doctor for it."
"So no shots?"
"No shots."
Look—am I proud of this? A little bit, honestly.
Was it wrong of me to convince her to practice in this manner? Perhaps.
Was it effective though? So far...yes.
I already have to tell her whether or not a visit will involve a shot, so it's not like I prompted a fear of needles. She already had that fear. I merely exploited it. Honestly, it's not even as bad as Rachel's fear, so it's nothing I can't handle (with Rachel it was nothing I...and a handful of nurses to help hold her down...couldn't handle).
When I took Phoebe in for her double ear infection...whenever that was (this summer has been an absolute blur)...I had to promise her there would be no shots involved. And there weren't.
When I know there are shots involved in an appointment, I tell her honestly that there will be and help her prepare for them emotionally.
And, honestly, I am not entirely sure how "they" would help her with her /k/ problem at the doctor (speech therapist's). It probably does not involve shots, so that was a bit of a truth-stretcher, but, like, otherwise I've never actually been to speech therapy so I dunno...it could be a thing (I'm 99.9% sure it's not a thing).
But Phoebe was highly motivated all day. We did a lot of practice at the dinner table, where everyone would remind her to say "Please can I have some _____?" instead of "Please tan I have some ______?"
Another fun fact about Phoebe is that she likes to eat. And she likes to eat everything at the table.
She will not rest until everything on the table is on her plate. Sometimes this means she has like five kinds of salad dressing. Because she needs everything.
It is super rare for her to turn down a food and she does a lot of asking for things to be put on her plate.
So, we were sitting around the table and she was begging for more and more cherries this evening.
"Tan I have another one?"
"You can if you say, 'Can I have another one?'"
"CAN I have another one?"
This went on for several cherries (we were pitting them as we went so it wasn't like we could just give her a handful at once) and I joked to everyone that we were going to ingrain this CAN I business into her and then we'd have to break it to her that it's actually MAY I.
"It's may I?" she asked. "I don't have to say tan anymore?"
"Well, you do have to say can," I told her. "Because I'm only giving you cherries when you say can."
"But it's may I?"
"Technically you should say may I rather than can I, yes."
"Oh. May-can I have another cherry?"
She said may-can for the rest of dinner.
So basically I think our home speech therapy is going well.
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