“But she doesn’t have a speech impediment,” I replied.
I had come to pick up my daughter one day, about four months into our forest school experiment. Not recognizing one of the teachers (not that uncommon here as teachers are often on a cluster type arrangement and also there is a high rate of substitute teachers), I had introduced myself as one of the mom’s.
“I know,” the teacher said, “I’ve been working with your daughter for a couple of months now.” I wasn’t sure what exactly that meant but after a bit of back and forth, she clarified that she wasn’t a teacher per se but a speech therapist. Hence the moment of confusion.
If my daughter really had a speech impediment, I’d like to think that I was the type of parent to put any resources available to her disposal, as opposed to shying away from the diagnosis in a defensive posture. But regardless of what I may or may not have thought of myself, I was definitely starting to appear the latter. I knew my daughter, and at home, she chatted away a mile a minute without any hint of impediment. So I said again, “But my daughter doesn’t have a speech impediment.”
“Of course she does, she doesn’t speak Danish, ” the therapist clarified. My immediate thought was since when does not speaking a language qualify as impediment – we had only been there for four months after all. But once I set aside my instinctual reaction of taking offense, and heard out the therapist, I saw that maybe there was some logic to this after all.
Because my daughter didn’t speak Danish coming into the school, and was wholly unfamiliar with many of the difficult sounds of the Danish language (not to mention the vocabulary writ large), the therapist was there to work with her to break down the language in to sounds she could digest…to work on diction… on pronunciation… and to increase her understanding of what individual words meant through the use of pictures and short books. In addition, the therapist helped to clarify for my daughter that her English-speaking life was at home, while her Danish-speaking life was at school. What started out as therapy for speech, ended up also being therapy for figuring out the cultural confusion that my daughter was going through, which in retrospect, we probably didn’t address enough at home.
The school had arranged for the therapist for her and another little girl, who was Danish and had a few enunciation issues, and that time aside with her actually gave my daughter the opportunity to have her first real Danish friend. And they’re still friends to this day. The program allowed for them both to have 10 hours a week of therapy together, and it continued for about a month or two after I had met the therapist. “Your daughter’s impediment is nearly gone!” the therapist cheerfully informed me.
At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of all this – especially since this whole thing had been arranged without my knowledge. In the US, surely this would involve about 14 pieces of paper to sign, right ? And fees! Shouldn’t I be owing them money for this?
With a little time, I learned to consider this as one of the greatest things the school was able to do for her. Now when people meet my daughter, they usually don’t pick up on the fact that she is not actually Danish until they meet me. Her language is nearly flawless – not that I’m a good judge of that. It’s what people tell me, and if you’ve been to Denmark you know that people aren’t the kind to blow smoke and rainbows out for you to flatter. She’s completely integrated, she’s successfully bilingual, and apart from our usual monthly school fee, we didn’t pay a single extra kroner for that. Part of me does still wish that they had kept me in the loop – not because I would have said no, but because I’m her mother. I would have wanted to know.
I wanted to share this today to shed a little light on a few differences but also to talk about one of the most helpful resources we came across, without even knowing it. If you do have a child in a Danish school that doesn’t yet speak the language, ask about the speech therapy option in your school or your commune. I don’t know if all schools are as proactive about organizing it. But in the end, it was one of the most important factors in bringing my daughter inside from the metaphorical outside, which can be a lonely place, at three or at any other age.
Hi,
Very interesting. May I ask in which kommunne you live? Thnaks!
sure, we are in the gentofte kommune!
Wow! how interesting. I am a speech therapist, although I am not practicing right now since we are living in Hamburg, but in the u.s. you are very right.. there would have to be formalized testing, a formal meeting, and then you would have to sign a document in order to receive services. Also, it is not possible to diagnose someone with a speech impairment just because they don’t speak the language. The impairment also has to be present in the native language. So speech therapy services wouldn’t be available for someone in your daughter’s situation. Here in Hamburg, my older daughter (she’s 8) receives additional services through the school to help her with the language, but my younger daughter does not (she is 4). I wonder if I should ask about something for her too, although she is doing really well with the language just by going to school and being exposed to it.
that’s the way I would have assumed it to work as well. one thing that I have been thinking about, and others have also mentioned on our FB discussion, is that maybe, the whole notion of “impediment” was lost a bit in translation. Everyone here has such excellent english that it’s easy to take for granted that all the english words chosen will be as we understand them. So maybe this was just something from direct translation that means one thing to us but really is just a matter of fact thing to them. In the end, it all worked out.
As for the other services, it never hurts to ask. had I known about the services, i probably would have asked myself (which is part of the reason for this post, so that others can know about them if they’re needed). Our daughter was doing actually okay with the language but still pretty quiet overall, the therapy though helped her really nail the pronunciation of the the more difficult sounds, and just helped to break down some of meanings during a time where things happened at her pace. if having to do it all over, i would totally have her do it again.
Fully understand how you feel. As the mother to a 5.5 year old, I’d totally want to know too if she was being offered speech therapy. Interestingly, my daughter’s going to start at A Danish school in August (after being in an international kindergarten for 2 years). So she’s being offered special classes before she can join her class at the local school. I’m pretty curious to see how it’s going to work.
I’ll be curious to hear as well – keep us posted and good luck! And i’ve heard of people taking classes before the “skole” and that it seemed to help with the pace and transition to I think they’re probably a good thing to incorporate.
Thanks for sharing! I’m going through a similar experience, my three years old is going to a Danish kindergarden, since we only speak Spanish at home (our mother tongue) his proficiency in Danish is lower than the rest of the kids in the same age, which may be affecting his socialization. it would be interesting to consider this kind of support for him. I also liked the way you are making sense of the cultural diversity through the language, English speaking life and the Danish one. I do enjoy reading you!
thanks so much and thanks for reading! and as for the support, yes, i definitely think it’s worth considering. it seems to have really made a difference for us, but all kids definitely absorb language at their own pace – this just made it okay for her to go at her own speed.
[…] they also were pretty reassuring that it would sort itself out eventually. And if you read the speech impediment essay, they were doing their own thing to help her get to the right place at the right […]
Hey everybody, I really need to get some explanations here since we have been through hell in Danosh kindergarden considering speech therapist.My son is 3 years and very late in speech development especially in Danish, according to Danish law he and all kids who score bad points from 0 until 5 (out of 100)on danish test are due to have speech therapist up to 15 hours a week in the kindergarden. We live in Østerbro and according to our director he cannot get this???
So I am very curious to hear where Toddler in the forest live ? Copenhagen kommune? and what is the name of your daughters speech therapist? Can You please write exactly the name of Kindergarden and address since our director CLAIMs that this is not possible to get anywhere in Copenhagen Kommune!!
Please help with any information since we are really desperate…
Thanks!!!
OK NOW i SAW YOU LIVE IN gENTOFTE KOMMUNE, MAYBE THATS HOW U GOT THIS. bECAUSE kk THEY DONT HIRE SPEECH THERAPIST BUT THE THERAPIST WORKS WITH PEDAGOG WHO WORKS AFTERWARDS WITH THE KID… BUT EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL AND SLOW! WE ARE VERY unsatisfied..
My daughter is going through the same exact thing. I feel horrible watching her unable to socialize. Also, the adults (caretakers) talk about her speech impediment in front of her. She is so clever that I would not doubt that she knows what they’re saying. Do you know if this particular speech therapist can be hired outside of the kommune? I am willing to pay extra to make sure my little one can get the help she needs. Unfortunately, we don’t have this available in our town. Thank you for an excellent article!!!
[…] of the most popular posts here on the blog has been the one regarding my daughter’s speech therapy, which she was given as though she had a speech impediment. While she does not (did not?) […]
[…] But She Doesn’t Have A Speech Impediment: Turns out, the story of how my daughter ended up in speech therapy and how that contributed to her learning Danish was the most popular post yet but a long shot! […]
[…] Denmark, the Toddler in the Trees’ mom discovers that being a non-native speaker of Danish is considered to be a speech impediment by the […]