Kourtney
Kramer
Debra
Reece
English
1050
November
17th, 2014
A Better Future for Children with Speech
Impediments
Every parents number one worry, is
100% the safety and well being of their children. You pace and panic while they are at school
and at night when they aren’t home yet you wonder and doubt everything you
taught them. But what if someone told
you, that because of the way your child spoke, made him or her a factor of
becoming a young offender with multiple charges? The fact that they may have had a small
stutter or some kind of speech impediment makes them at risk for making bad
decisions in the teenage years of their life.
My purpose is to remove the
stereotype that kids who are raised with speech impediments are destined to
become young offenders. Authors Karen Bryan, and Juliette Gregory write out the
test results of individuals that had committed a felony and have had a history
of speech or language disabilities. In
this article, it shows how a team set up by the testing program can give speech
and language therapy intervention to test each individual to determine a
educational rank for them. “Teens who usually engage in criminal activity, in
the authors’ point of view, are linked to having speech disabilities as well as
learning difficulties. Studies
of offenders’ speaking and listening skills have used populations of young
people in different countries over various age ranges. This means that studies
are not directly compatible, but a consensus figure of 50–60% of young people
who are involved in offending having speech, language and communication needs
is emerging.” Says Bryan. They
say that the tie between these two is they are functioning two years below
their peer group putting them in a disadvantage of those around them. The idea of them being left behind creates
the opportunity for anger and frustration to build up and put them in the
position to be a young offender.
The article also mentions the
importance of peers and family in the lives of those who are struggling with speech
and language disabilities. Palikara
(2009) suggests that “good family relationships may also be positive in helping
children with speech and language therapy to cope with secondary education,
although many young people who become involved in criminal activity have little
to no family support.” One of the most
common reasons for children being raised with speech disabilities is because of
emotional trauma or serious events that happen in a child’s life. Things that happen to the parents or the
family have effect on the children even if we don’t know it. Some of the most important factors
that help children progress include parent carry over, participation and
motivation. The article tells you about
the importance of educating your child, and doing all that you can at a young
age to help improve the impediment before it starts to play a role on the
child’s life. The more interest, devotion and excitement you show, the better
your child’s attitude will be towards therapy.
If they are not happy when working with teachers or therapist then they
are less likely to work as hard or willingly.
The thing that frustrates me the
most is the statement that, “boys with early language development problems were
significantly at risk of teenage antisocial behaviors.” stated by Smart (2003). The assumption they are making is huge and
climactic for those who are not as social as the people surrounding them. There is always the choice of each individual
to live the life that they chose, whether to go out of their comfort zone and
working to improve any disabilities they may have or rather, sitting back and
letting your disability become a hurdle you chose not to jump over. It all depends on the way that the teen or
child handles the challenges they are given to decide how their future will
play out. There are people in the world that
grew up with speech impediments and because of their dreams and wishes they
became very successful in life. Bruce
Willis, a famous actor off of Die Hard and The Whole Nine Yards, had
stuttering problems throughout his youth and was always scared it would affect
his acting career. Fortunately he successfully grew out of it not too much from
a therapist but from being an actor, it actually removed his speech disorder. This just goes to show that given the
right amount of confidence and things will work out for your kids. Another example that I tend to find very
interesting is Rowan Atkinson, who is more commonly known as Mr. Bean. Atkinson admits to having struggled with
speech impediments as a child. He
struggled the most with the letter B, but because of the way he chose to handle
his life and the things that may have held him back, he used to his
benefit. He taught himself to over
pronounce the word and later, used that as a comedy act for his career. It was one of the key reasons he became the
comedian he is today, aside from his rubber like facial expressions that make
up most of his work.
I want to argue that you can prevent
kids with speech impediments from becoming young offenders in tomorrow’s
society. Rather than working to fix
their impairment down the road when negative things have already came into play
in their lives. Why try and fix the
problem after it’s already taken a toll on the rising generations when we can
work harder on preventing and fixing it before hand. I say this because the Bryan and Gregory tend
to dwell on fixing the problem when it’s a little too late. I know that there are ways to work with the
youth to improve their disadvantages and encourage others to include those that
may not feel as comfortable in a social environment because of their disabilities.
The simple solution to this is improving
the educational support for children with specific language impairments. Raising the one on one time with students who
seem to need the specialized attention to help in advancing their schooling and
the experience they have. It’s important
to create a safe environment for student so that their confidence can be built
up and help prepare them for becoming more social for later on in life. When in a safe environment the student will
be able to open up and feel more comfortable with speaking with those around
them. A way to better their disability
is giving them opportunities to talk, publicly and one on one. Not necessarily in front of large crowds but
small groups who will encourage them and be patient with the struggles they may
have as they try to express themselves. I
found an article called Adult Speech Therapy and they gave out three helpful
tips for those who are suffering from impediments to work on as they
communicate with others around them. I
believe that if we implement this into our education system that we can reduce
the number of kids who suffer from this and help them to have a better and
brighter future.
The first tip that it gives you is, ‘Look
at the person you are talking to’, which may seem kind of predictable but eye
contact is a huge key to an understood conversation. If you are focused on the conversation and
giving the words and the person you are talking to, your full attention than
you can more easily communicate your thoughts.
‘Use gesture and facial expression to
enhance your message.’ Is one of the next tips that it suggests. If pronouncing your words doesn’t come easily
and your face shows that, people are going to have a harder time understanding
what you are trying to communicate. If
you show your facial expressions the kind of emotion you are trying to portray
than the message is more easily understood and better communicated to those
around you.
And
the last one I found most helpful, ‘Use your lungs, and breathe from your
diaphragm when talking to give your voice more power.’ If you are quiet when
speaking or looking away from those around you because you are nervous to speak
up in fear that people will hear your impediment, speak up! The more confidence
you have in your voice the more confident you will sound. Even the most confident people still get
nervous when speaking to others but the key is to use power and to prove
yourself wrong about a speech impediment holding you back.
I
strongly believe that if we take these hints and others as well and implement
them into the way kids are taught and raised that we can banish the stereotype
of kids being two levels behind those without impediments.
If teachers would take the time to learn
about their student’s individual speech impairment they would find ways to help
improve that student. The more they get
to know the student the more they learn their strengths and weakness’ and their
likes and dislikes. The teacher can then
put the student in situations where they know they will succeed, giving them a
confidence boost and creating chances for them to open up and be more social. It also helps to create a better relationship
for that child to have as an influence as they learn. The more positive influences there are for
the child decreases the amount of negativity they see and decreases the
opportunity for them to develop speech impediments.
In my opinion, if we work hard to help
improve children’s speech disabilities while they are still young, rather than
waiting until it weighs in on their lives and starts having an effect on their
social life, we can help better them. A
lot of the solutions to these problems are simple, yet we are not giving them
all the effort we can give. If each
person realized the impact they had on a child’s social behaviors then we could
all do our part in helping them have a fighting chance. Taking the time to show
the children that might be suffering, that there is a light at the end of the
tunnel and what they may be struggling with can be fix or repaired; That this
speech impediment isn’t something that has to shape their future.
Children really do pick up everything
around them and some how absorb it. I
have a nephew who almost always can see through the walls that my family or I
put up to guard our emotions. He can
pick up the smallest hint of sadness in my eyes and it immediately has an
effect on his mood and his actions. The
smallest bit of frustration his dad feels after being let go at his job caused
my nephew to be stressed in school and to pick on the other kids because being
angry is what he saw at home. The way
adults react around children really does have a huge impact on their lives and
their behaviors. The more serious the
trauma, the more serious role it plays in their life.
The fact that the stereotype of children
with speech or language disabilities shapes them for becoming young offenders
even exists, frustrates me in many ways.
I’ve seen many children, nephews and neighbors who have had problems
with the way they speak. No matter if it’s that they cant pronounce the letter
R, or that they stutter when trying to ask for help, and they have become
smart, outgoing kids. The only way we can help them as they develop into their
teens is to reinsure them that things get better; that if kids are teasing them
that there are easier ways to solve it than anger. You can’t stop teens from teasing or making
fun because when they are in that stage of vulnerability they chose to pick on
others. But the support system they
could have at home and from their peers can prove to them that there is improvement
and you can repair the speech impediments the child is faced with.
Giving them a brighter future and more
chances to succeed rather than fall into the stereotype of becoming a young
offender could be the best thing that we ever do in our life. They are the next generation that will run
our business’ and be the next church leaders and school teachers, but that can
only be made possible if we decrease the amount of children who let speech
impediments and language disabilities lead them down a path of destruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment