Oh. My. God.

[conuly]

Today, a speech pathologist came to talk to Evangeline's whole class and they did this little assignment on writing feeling words under pictures. "How do you think their voice would sound?"

This was the mom of one of the students, one of their Community Worker things. (I wish my dad were still here, he'd love to go in to talk about his life as a rabble rouser!)

The back of the assignment is a note to the parents. It is so full of problems that I just about ran down the stairs (on my hurt ankle!) to write it up for you guys.

Everything here is exactly as written.

Dear parents,

today I have told your children what Speech Language Pathologist does and what he/she meant to help. Below are some general information about what we should expect at 6-7 years old and when to seek help.

What we should consider!

a. Fluency -get's stock on a word or a sound, making inappropriate pause, speaking too fast- becomes unintelligible.

b. Voice ( hoarse, harsh, screams a lot, at periods looses voice when speaking)

c. Articulation- actual sound production.

Here is the list of sounds and sound combinations which your children may not acquire yet;however, should by age 7. All other sounds should be present - you will hear a clear production of it. If you notice any deviation from this list, please don't hesitate and seek an evaluation of Speech Language Pathologist. Don't forget, the longer your child produces the sound incorrectly the longer it may take to correct it. Your child might be the next President of the United States!!!!

z,sl, sp, sw, th

e. Hering- please check hearing annually, especially if they have frequent ear infections!

e. A connection of all for functional communications- over all conversations, expression of thought, understanding others.

If you feel that your child has difficulty with any of the above listed criterions please consult a professional.

Websites: www.asha.org

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me at any time.

Best regards, NAME (NAME'S mom) Email NAME@aol.com

See, ladies and gentlemen, this is why you always need somebody to proofread your work. Maybe you're a poor typist, or learned English later in life, or went to a crappy school where nobody taught you how to punctuate. Maybe she typed this up in a bit of a rush. Regardless, it comes off as incredibly unprofessional. It is unprofessional, and when you're representing yourself as a member of your profession you want to look good! Heck, most of us want to look good all the time. I wouldn't stick a note in Evangeline's lunchbox that was this poorly edited. I have been known to rewrite notes just because I had too many crossouts.

This woman also gave her daughter a "creative" spelling of a common name. I had thought it was just in poor taste*, but now I wonder if she just didn't know better.

Maybe my mother would like to go in and talk about the importance of proofreading, and always writing, spelling, and punctuating correctly... or at least consistently.

*Creative spellings of common names mean your kid spends her life correcting people's spelling. I never understood why you'd want to do that to your kid. That's one thing a better orthography would fix, although no doubt to get any such thing pushed through you'd have to promise to let people keep their names as they are.

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

Seems especially egregious for someone teaching "fluency"!

[conuly]

Yes, that was my slightly horrified thought, in between all of the amusement.

But I took speech therapy as a kid. I had, by my estimation, one good teacher and a string of mediocre to bad ones. (The good one is the one who sat down and took the time to explain to me how to form each problematic sound. She had diagrams! The others had no advice other than to talk slower.) Writing doesn't seem to be necessary to that job, thankfully, and many people who can't form a complete sentence when writing are perfectly fluent speakers. (Why they can't just write like they speak, though, I don't understand.)

[crystalpyramid]

I was so frustrated by my speech therapy (which I didn't get till high school, because it wasn't included with private school). My high school French textbook had these diagrams of your mouth and how you were supposed to hold your tongue to say the sounds. That was all I wanted from my speech therapist, but instead she had to explain everything the long and confusing way, so I was never sure if I was right.

[rho]

I am particularly amused by the idea of a 7 year old becoming the next US president, given that they would be at most 14 at the time when the next president takes office. (Depending on when their birthday is and whether Obama gains a second term.)

[siderea]

OMFG

My mother would totally have marked it up with a red pen and sent it back.

[conuly]

Mine too.

[janewilliams20]

It wouldn't have got as far as my mum, I'd have taken a red pen to it myself, or possibly put my hand up and asked very politely what it meant.

[pne]

That's one thing a better orthography would fix, although no doubt to get any such thing pushed through you'd have to promise to let people keep their names as they are.

No doubt.

I certainly know of several areas where proper names often (or at least occasionally) have old spellings.

For example, "w" in Hungarian names, "ß" after short vowel in German names, Inuktitut names like "Pootoogook", my first Japanese teacher who had 與 in her name rather than 与, ....

If spelling reform ends up turning to an entirely different alphabet, then you'd likely avoid the problem, but if you stay within the Latin alphabet, I'm sure people will tend to want to keep the spellings of their names.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

*Creative spellings of common names mean your kid spends her life correcting people's spelling. I never understood why you'd want to do that to your kid.

Amen to this. It's bad enough when someone has a common name with an orthodox spelling and has to correct people all the time. It's even worse when a girl is named "Mikelle" and her name is pronounced "Michael." ^^;;;; People, seriously! Leave the fancy Mary Sue spellings to your own Mary Sue fictional characters and leave your flesh and blood kids out of it. XD;;;;;;

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Some of us have surnames that require constant spelling out anyway.

My previous husband was named Zorn. Like the football player. Easy enough, right?

Wrong. Thorn, Vorn, Dorn, I heard every variation and had to spell it pretty much every time.

[conuly]

I wouldn't know a thing about football players.

Funnily, we once had a dentist (an immigrant) who had no trouble at all spelling my mother's fairly unusual last name (there are literally about two dozen people with this name, half of whom are relatives of ours. The other half are relatives of each other) but couldn't remember how to spell "Baker", my sister's name and mine, to save her life.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I never heard of the football player, but I wouldn't have forgotten the name because it's a word in the Lapine language (http://www.bing.com/search?q=Lapine+language&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC). (yes I'm a geek.)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's a word in German, too, where it means "Wrath". ^^

[marveen.livejournal.com]

My ex was much amused by that when I introduced him to Watership Down.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I surmise the note was written by an Asian person learning English as an adult, who may also have been typing too hastily, but who did use a spellchecker before sending it. Note that all the long words are correctly spelled, yet there's 'get's stock' - a type of error that only a non-native speaker would make, and that a robot spellchecker won't catch.
'Hering' is probably a genuine typo, since it's spelled correctly a few words later.

After George Dubya Bush, the comment about "your child might be the next President of the United States" would surely be bitterly ironic if it came from a native citizen. The statement is wrong in any case - your child absolutely cannot be the next President, nor the President after next either - but the ability to speak clearly doesn't seem to be essential to the job, and most people wouldn't want their kid to be President anyway.

[conuly]

Last name reads as Jewish, probably German to me. And I've seen her kid, she doesn't look biracial, though I suppose she might not and still be.

Truthfully, what bugs me more than the spelling is the gratuitous use of exclamation points as random punctuation. Four in a row is just never justified.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Could be Icelandic, given the apparent emphasis on checking your child's herring.

[redbird]

Five in a row are a sure sign of an unsound mind.

[conuly]

That quote never ever gets old.