He Said the (Beep) Word!

Why are bad words so fascinating??  Even the ones identified as "not very nice" make the world stop spinning for a moment when heard by a child.  I've been stopped in the cafeteria more than once by a tattling student.  "Oooooohhhhh!!!!  She said the S word!!!!"  Come to find out the word was "stupid."  How vulgar!!

I was testing a student yesterday and used two CD tracks to administer auditory processing subtests.  One of the tasks involves a man's voice saying words with missing parts.  The student is asked to tell me the word the person is trying to say after they hear two beeps.  Example:  (Beep) rabbi_ (beep, beep)...  (beep) chi__en (beep, beep)...

The boy I was testing yesterday was shocked by this.  "He's saying A LOT of bad words!  He's talking about a dirty chicken!"  He was convinced the beeps were the same censor beeps he has heard on television.  When you think of it that way, the audio recordings are tough to listen to without chuckling.  This is particularly true if you're an eight year old boy!  I spent the next 20 minutes trying to keep him on task.

I told this story to my husband last night.  His response was, "What's the test called??  The Woodcock-Johnson?  Now that's funny!"  Apparently boys don't grow out of this.

I have to admit I was laughing, too!