Monday 19 May 2014

The Good News

I've said a lot so far about the difficulties encountered by children/people with SLI and how tricky it is to get it recognised and supported. There is another side to this of course, in my experience of the amazing achievements that you can see.

My daughter has gone from being a pre-reader at P8 in year 2 (aged 5/6) to a near average level of 3c in year 4 (age 8). This is at double the rate a child would normally learn to read at because she has had lots of support and been given speech and language therapy. The reading has unlocked so much for her and it is a really remarkable progression.

Someone told me the other day that we need our children to see themselves as superheroes. And she really is - a superhero and a little star who can defeat the obstacles to claim her place in the world. She made a comic strip called 'The Little Star' who wanted a hero because she had lost her light and Tom the cow who no-one believed could be a superhero but found the light and brought it back to the Star. It seems her inner world of stories is more in personal psychology than you can imagine!

So despite the fights for understanding and the on-going need to keep tabs on what's happening, (because it doesn't happen without an intervention), she is really her own superhero. And that is true for all children, and we just need to keep reminding them of that and the people around them of what they are truly capable of.

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