George

Only one word

A communication problem

Outstanding professional success

A seemingly unrelated issue

A long natural history

Only one word

The oldest child of my oldest friend did not start talking at the expected time.  I only saw him very occasionally. Eventually he found one word, for his bottle of what seemed to me over-sweetened drink, which he said as OCHIWAA. My friend’s wife had a very sweet tooth. At three and a half, George still had OCHIWAA as his only word.

A communication problem

I heard that he had a brief period of speech and language therapy. I don’t know how regular or intense this was. But very gradually, words started to be combined. My old friend and his family moved abroad for a while. And I wasn’t in close enough touch to know what George’s teachers thought and said about his speech and language. But I did hear that when he was doing his second degree (in Britain), his course director commented on his ‘communication problem’.

Outstanding professional success

He graduated, and went on to work in international banking, where communication is paramount, achieving the greatest success.

A seemingly unrelated issue

In his speech and language, there is no longer any trace that I can detect of his earlier problems. His only issue, as far as I am aware, is that he is not good at judging the effect of his words on others, a weakness of which he is well aware.

A long natural history

Professionally, I have never had contact over this amount of time, a little over 40 years. I tell George’s story because it illustrates the long natural history of speech and language disorders, known from various studies.