Speech program at Sonny Carter Elementary is cause for excessive tail wagging

Using a series of American sign language gestures, fourth-grader MáKai Griffin signals to his four-legged friend Charlie to sit, lie down, shake hands and even to give him a hug.

The 9-year-old student at Sonny Carter Elementary School shares a special bond with Charlie: They are both deaf.

Charlie is a Dalmatian and registered therapy dog who belongs to Mary Kathryn Brundige, Sonny Carter’s new speech-language pathologist.

Brundige has extensively researched the benefits of animal-assisted therapy and decided Charlie could be used to help her students learn sign language.

“Not everybody loves speech therapy, so I try to make it as fun as possible,” she said.

Students who are pulled out of class or some other favorite activity, she said, aren’t necessarily thrilled about having to come to her class to work on their speech.

But Charlie gives the children something to look forward to.

“We’re all in here for a reason, because we have something to work on,” she said she tells her students.

Brundige said that includes herself. One of the things Brundige is working on is her fluency in sign language.

MáKai’s interpreter, Brittany Shepherd, said that in some cases MáKai has even helped Brundige with her hand gestures by showing her the correct signs to teach to Charlie.

Shepherd said she thinks Charlie is “awesome for speech therapy” because he functions as a reward system for students. She said she also sees benefits outside of speech class.

“(MáKai) loves Charlie, and he likes that Charlie is deaf,” Shepherd said. “And he’s written a story about Charlie for his writing class, so it’s helped with that, too.”

Charlie provides students with a source of entertainment entangled in education.

“More than just (deaf and hard of hearing) kids are learning sign language, which is always good because that helps them communicate (with) those kids who are,” she said.

To contact writer David Schick, call 744-4382 or find him on Twitter @davidcschick.

This story was originally published August 30, 2015 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Speech program at Sonny Carter Elementary is cause for excessive tail wagging ."