Testing Zachary

by Janis Jaffe-White
 
Recently I brought my 4 year old son to a Speech-Language Pathologist to have him assessed.  One question she asked dealt with his ability to make sounds using his tongue.   She asked if he could touch his nose or chin with his tongue and if he could move his tongue from side to side.  I know that he could lick an ice-cream cone but I wasn't sure how far he could reach with his tongue.  She suggested that I put a blop of peanut butter on parts of his face and tell him to lick it off.

Needless to say, Zachary was not impressed.  He would not tolerate the peanut butter on his nose.  He didn't try to lick it; he rubbed it off with his whole sleeve! I tried to convince him to play this 'game' but he wouldn't.  Before long, he had it stuck to his eyebrows, eyelashes and both cheeks.  He looked bewildered.

Then I got a brainstorm.  First I cleaned up his face.  I returned the peanut butter jar to the cupboard.  Rather than telling him what to do, I wrote on his prized Magnadoodle:  "Stick out your tongue".  He watched closely while I modelled it for him.  He started to laugh.  Almost immediately he stuck out his tongue and tried to reach for his nose.

I had my answer for the professional.  At the same time we had fun being silly.  From now on we only spread peanut butter on bread or roll pine cones in peanut butter when we're making birdfeeders.

Janis Jaffe-White is the mother of 3 wonderful children: Rebecca (6), Zachary (5) and Sabrina (2 1/2).  They live in Toronto.  Zachary starts senior kindergarten in September, 1997, at his neighbourhood public school.