I mean, it’s good that now we know all these things and we are better able to tell what’s going on with a child. In most cases, I think it’s better to know things than not to know them, but it depends on the person (in this case the parent) too–whether you are able to put things in context and not make more of them than what they are.

In our case, I was never seriously worried about Asterix, because I could see that whatever it was, it was minor. This time I took him to the doctor because the school district said I should, and I didn’t want to look like a bad mom. It was also interesting to hear that there is something with his hearing, even though it was also clear that he was hearing well enough to manage quite well at school. (His spelling tests are all 100%, though the teacher did notice that he sometimes asks for the word to be repeated.) Also, he hadn’t had a “well” visit since the one he needed for the kindergarten medical, so we took care of that at the same time. (Should I admit his brother hadn’t either, until very recently, and he’s 12?)

We haven’t seen the ENT specialist yet. They didn’t call–I guess I will have to do that. In the meantime we dealt with Kalessin’s sight, who did turn out to need glasses.

Then again, I’m not a parent.

Something like the tonsils–or even more likely, the adenoids–having to come out might well be in the future for Asterix. His nose is constantly stuffy. In his case though, the problem is not understanding him–his pronunciation is almost normal (for some reason, he doesn’t pronounce the “ng” sound right–he says “sin” and “sing” the same way, both with a slightly d-ish n, but he can tell the difference when he hears these pairs).

The noticeable problem is more in his grammar, which is consistent with SLI–a mild case, because he uses inflectional endings properly in English now (past -ed, 3rd person -s), practically all the time. I knew it wasn’t a very bad case from the beginning, by the way, because he sometimes regularized irregular past tenses, and took words from one language and fitted them in the grammar of the other–which are the signs of normal grammar processing. (Someone with a serious case of SLI will use irregular past forms correctly, but will leave off the -ed of the regular ones, for example.) Asterix used to have a lot of difficulty getting word order right though–turning a statement into a question, negation, adding auxiliaries like “can” in the right place. This problem has mostly disappeared too, and I think he falls in the “acquires language in the same sequence as normal children but at a slower rate” group.

Still no word from the doctor. I’ll probably have to call them.

Extra dimensions sound exciting–a science fiction theme! That could explain the left-right thing too–in a mirror dimension they should of course be reversed. And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve suspected that some kids have been abducted by aliens and replaced with mischievously sequenced clones, though it’s the first time I suspect one of my own.

(Seriously, a long time ago in a school system far, far away, I had a class of lovely 8th grade students come back for 9th grade as monsters worthy of Alien XIII, and I told them this was my best theory. They laughed and said something about being teenagers now, which confirmed my suspicions.)

Thanks for the comments, everyone! If they try to name some weird condition after the kid, I’ll recommend Audness instead.

Someone in my family full of teachers went through all sorts of testing for his reading problem. He has had mysterious diagnoses applied to him (like his perception included extra dimensions). It was years before a simple vision test (that resulted in specialized lenses) would help clear things up. (arghhh).

Oddness works, too. (Audness?)

Kathleen, some kids with SLI have dyslexia too, and some don’t. So far he seems to be falling in the camp of those who don’t.

It’s mostly in processing grammar where the problem is apparent. In English this appears as incorrect word order and occasional -s and past tense issues. In Hungarian it’s messier because of all the endings words are supposed to get in a sentence (he skips some of them or uses the wrong ones). But his English now sounds pretty normal for a seven-year-old, because seven-year-olds still make the same kind of mistakes, and he just makes them a little more often.

Littlefluffy, I’ve never heard of Tomatis therapy. I’ll check it out.