Indigo has trouble finding words.

She has a lot to say – she says it, but she stumbles along as though she is unsure what to say.   But trust me, she has a lot to say.

A talk with each other and with the doc has lead Miss Indigo to speech therapy.  I wondered if she was on the spectrum or if she had something else going on.  Even though all other signs were not there.

Diagnosis?

When Indigo reaches into her brain for a word, it’s as though every word is written on a piece of paper tossed onto the floor.  No organization – no rhyme or reason – no way for her to quickly grab it when she needs it.

A normal person when asked to name ‘animals’ for example, would start with farm animals, then move to zoon animals, then move to aquatic animals. Indigo? She has no pattern to her thinking.  She simply sorts through the papers and sees what she grabs.  If you ask her to name 10 animals, she could take 20 minutes as she goes through this process.

Her words, in short, are not organized.

So we have to help her organize them.

An almost 10 year old going through this is funny.  She listens to what is going on – so understands what and why she needs to do things.  She knows what is going to fix it too.  What will fix it?

Playing games where she has 1 minute to name 10 of something.  We give her things to name – animals, pizza toppings, zoo animals, veggies you find in a salad, colors of something – and she has one minute to name 10.

When we first started playing this game, you could see her disorganization.  She would jump around all over the place – missing the obvious connections – and still struggling with the ones she did make.

A week into the game playing, you can see her thought processes changing.  You can see she has organized animals by where they live or what they do.  You can hear it as she goes through the list and transitions from one to another.

Today when I said something, she explained she was organizing her words in her brain.  I love that she said it that way.  I hope progress continues to get made.

But then again, if it does, it means she will be even more quick witted than she already is.  And if she has that argument right at her finger tips, we could all be in trouble.

But oh what a problem to have.