Talk Like a Dinosaur

We started Dinosaur Junction because in large part due to my son's severe speech delay.   At age 3, my son could only say a “Mom” and “Dad”.  My son was diagnosed as having apraxia which is a motor skill problem where the child has difficulty moving their tongue for speech.  Our problem became "how do we motivate this child to speak."  He had his own little sign language that he had made up and taught to his family.  The sign language worked well for him - why go through the trouble of forcing himself to do something that was difficult?

What saved the day was my son’s absolute and complete love of dinosaurs and prehistoric sea creatures.  We must have watched BBC's Chased by Dinosaurs (with Nigel Marvin) over a thousand times.  My son was willing to work hard to pronounce the names of different dinosaurs which, lets face it, is not easy for us adults!  My son could pronounce "tyrannosaurus rex" before he could pronounce the word "water”.  I knew we were getting somewhere when he corrected the speech therapist’s pronunciation of a couple types of dinosaurs!

We practiced his speech every day with the Kaufman method and we also encouraged his love of prehistoric creatures. And in time his speech has dramatically improved.

If you have a child with a speech disorder and you have ideas of how to help others please send it to info@DinosaurJunction.com.

We highly recommend visiting the following organizations for more information on the identification and treatment of speech disorders.