Week 3: post 1

As this course is progressing, I am finding it to be more and more interesting. I guess that is because we have gotten out of the theories of how development comes about and we have moved into the stages of development. This week we watched a video on language development of children. This reminded me of my sister and her language development. When my sister was younger, she struggled with speech. I'm not sure if her difficulty came because she was a premature baby or not, but she needed speech therapy to help her through her problems. My sister learned to speak at a later age than most children. For years she started off with only able to say words that started with the letter D. My parents picked up on this habit, so when they adopted a dog, they named him Duke so that Molly could say his name. With time and therapy, my sister was able to learn how to speak at the same level as children her age, but the thing I still notice is that whenever she says words that start with V, she says a "tha" sound like it starts with a TH instead. (For example "very"- Molly says "Thery.")

My parents obviously started my sister in speech therapy at the right time because she talks perfectly fine today. If they had not started her when they did, she could have suffered the consequences of late development. Today, my sister is a college graduate with a great job, but maybe she would not be where she is if it were not for my parents’ promptness to start therapy when they did.