Unfinished Business

In the last few weeks I’ve been taking care of unfinished business. It’s my way of ringing in Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and preparing for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

My first order of unfinished business was to make an appointment for Jiro to have his speech evaluated.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of carrying on a conversation with Jiro, he has his own special way of talking. There are several sounds that he has trouble with and he sometimes leaves the beginning and/or ending sounds off of words. He also substitutes one sound for another. I can usually understand most of what he is saying, but there are times that I have no idea. Strangers, on the other hand, very often understand very little of what he is saying. This, as you can imagine, is quite frustrating to Jiro as well as the listener.

Thankfully, Jiro hasn’t had any trouble making friends or communicating with his teachers. And he is an excellent student. Because he manages to function so well, it has been easy to think that his speech problems were something he would grow out of. Last year, his teacher, Mrs. F., who has training in speech therapy, started working with him one on one, and he has made a lot of progress.

Jiro has a lot to say. He is smart as a whip and has a great vocabulary. He can tell you the plot line to every Star Wars movie ever made as well as the characters’ names and motivations, the names of all of the spaceships, etc. He can even sing you the theme song!

I have a faction of friends and family who think the way Jiro talks is adorable and perfectly normal for his age. And there are those that think I should have taken him in for testing a long time ago. A few weeks ago when Satchel started playing with the boy next door, Jason, something happened to push me over the edge. Jiro ran over to Jason and started talking to him about a frog or a bug or who knows what. Jason, who is nine, looked up at me and asked, “Is he trying to learn how to speak English or something?”

That very nearly broke my heart. I don’t want anyone to write Jiro off because they can’t understand what he is saying. So I made the call. First to UT, then to the U of M, then the Board of Education and then finally to my health insurance provider. Turns out we qualify for free testing and therapy through the City Schools, but there’s a six week plus waiting list just to get screened. UT had therapy openings, but they aren’t covered under my insurance. Neither is the U of M. I decided to eat the $215 evaluation fee and go ahead and have him evaluated at the U of M. (The mountain of paperwork geared towards kids with ADHD at UT turned me off of them.) I called the U of M at just the right time and got Jiro an evaluation within a two week period due to a cancellation.

Jiro’s appointment was Tuesday. I told him that we were going to see some people who wanted to help him with his letters like Mrs. F. (Mrs. F uses flavored drops to help Jiro recognize where to put his tongue for certain sounds.) He was very excited about this notion and happily asked, “What flavors do they have?”

On the drive over, Warren and I reminisced about how far Jiro had come in the past year, agreed that we could understand almost everything he said, and even laughed about how they were probably going to tell us he was fine. After two hours of comprehensive testing, we were told that Jiro has a “serious” speech impediment and is recommended for two hours of therapy a week. (To be fair, this information was given to us packaged between many accolades and reassurances.) Warren and I both took the news pretty well. Despite hoping for the best, we were both ready to face the facts.

Here are the facts:

1. Jiro needs speech therapy.
2. The U of M has no openings this semester.
3. When and if Jiro gets a spot next semester or over the summer, one of us will have to leave work twice a week to take him in.
4. Insurance will not cover any of the anticipated $400/month.
5. We can call other places to see if there are openings, but 3 and 4 still come into play.

It’s all a little depressing and overwhelming. When the City Schools get an opening, Jiro can get free therapy at a public school close to our home. One of us will still have to take off work, but at least it will be close enough for Warren to drop him off and go back to work. In the meantime, Mrs. F. will continue to work with him and so will we.

Jiro is actually very interested in improving and has a good attitude about the whole thing. Satchel, who is guilty of teasing him from time to time, is doing his best to help too. The two of us got very excited when we were able to get Jiro to say “Schnucks” instead of “Nucks” the other night.

It’s going to take a lot of time, practice, and patience. Wish us luck.