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By Patricia McAleer Hamaguchi; 218 pages. From the book cover: "Children with speech, language, or listening problems can look forward to less frustration, self-doubt, and misplaced blame for their limitations if they are properly diagnosed and treated and if their family is informed and supported."

Whether you’re trying to make sense of your child’s communication problem or a speech therapist’s report, this book offers a comprehensive overview of causes and treatments that can bring you up to speed.

About the Guide Rating



Pros

• Matter-of-fact style gets the job done nicely.
• Wide range of problems profiled.
• Problems linked to other special needs included.
• Structure of book makes it easy to find what you're looking for.
• Suggestions offered for at-home activities.

Cons

• You'll want to do more in-depth research after you find your child's problem here.
• Lengthy case studies aren't all that interesting.
• Different professionals use different terminology, making some of these descriptions slippery.
• A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Description

• Chapter 1: Speech, Language, and Listening: How They Develop
• Chapter 2: Does Your Child Need Help? The Warning Signs
• Chapter 3: Having Your Child Evaluated
• Chapter 4: After the Evaluation: Understanding Report Jargon and the IEP
• Chapter 5: Understanding Speech Problems
• Chapter 6: Understanding Language Problems
• Chapter 7: Understanding Listening Problems
• Chapter 8: Causes and Conditions
• Appendix A: Resources
  Appendix B: Suggested Reading
• Glossary
  Bibliography
  Index

Guide Review - Book Review: Childhood Speech, Language and Listening Problems

Speech therapy seems to be a growth industry among school services. More and more kids are requiring the help of a speech-language pathologist (SLP) to resolve articulation issues, help with language processing and comprehension, improve listening skills, and speak and write more effectively. And that means more and more parents are wondering, What’s this all about? What’s all this therapy going to do? What should we be doing at home?

“Childhood Speech, Language, and Listening Problems” is all about the answers to those questions. It runs through the process by which a child is evaluated for communication problems, what the reports mean, what services a parent should seek, and where those might best be found. Author Hamaguchi then goes into just about every possible variation on those problems, including those caused by other disorders such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism and ADHD. The descriptions aren’t in depth, but they give parents enough of an understanding that they can sit in a meeting with an SLP without feeling overwhelmed.

As with so many challenges that children with special needs face, there seems to be a lot of overlap among communication problems. Reading this book, I was seeing a little of my daughter here, a little of my daughter there. I still can’t say I’ve got my finger exactly on what’s going on. But it’s always comforting to realize that other children and parents are struggling with the same things.

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