Santino happily entered the office and responded to social greet via referencing paired with verbalization. He initiated transition rapidly as he initiated salutation to Ingrid.
He scanned the room upon entry and requested a favorite item not within his visual field. He responded to the inquiry regarding the music choice for today. Initiation of "where "question form facilitated transition to the next activity. Joint parallel/chaining was facilitated as Santino regulated action within the activity as well as to repeat the action sequence. Instances of social referencing were strong and paired consistently with verbal action regulation ( "take the colored shapes out"
"lets do it again"). Expanded engagement to include aspects of "trade" and turn taking were successful. Strong session.
Jonathan was happy to get outside for some fresh air and take the masks off for speech therapy. He showed where he lost a tooth and now it was harder to get the sound. We practiced various exercises until we heard and felt the correct air flow for a strong (not so noisy) /s/ sound. With lots of practice on a iPad game with silly tongue twister /s/ sentences, Jonathan got a lot of practice in and was feeling more confident.
Richard was in a great mood when we met on the playground during recess. He was once again called "granny" as the person who is "It" in a tag like game. He appeared frustrated by that but used a strategy we discussed by saying "I'm going to take a break" and he walked over to another part of the park. He then rejoined in a better place to participate as a flexible, happy member of the game. During our speech practice, Richard was focussed to get through all our target sounds so he could move on to Pokemon or something more exciting. He was on task with the blends and we lost track of time. He was disappointed that we didn't get to Pokemon but I reminded him how proud I was for all the amazing practice. Then when he realized the next week was spring break, he was thrilled.
Marcel was excited to report that he practiced a little bit. He seemed more confident with the list and we had a conversation about how that practice will help him meet his goal. He has so many great ideas to share and we talked about how being a confident communicator is important to expressing those ideas and communication with peers and adults. He asked to practice with fun "Would you rather questions" and we had some laughs at the start of his school day. He said he was leaving school early but it was good to laugh and not be so serious all the time.
Marcel was all business with a lot of school work on his plate. We went right to the ongoing word list, and discussed the differences between /er/ and /ar/ sounds. Again using video feedback, it helped Marcel identify the slight changes that he had to make. He does not like seeing himself on video but he said that "it sounds good" but it "feels so weird." Practice will help normalize the "weird" stuff he feels and hears. He was committed to practicing his list.
Jonathan was happy to meet outside after the lunch recess to discuss the "Among Us" game and where to make necessary adjustments to make it more user friendly. We then played a card game practicing /s/ in words - he wanted to challenge himself and see how many words he could get right in a row. His record was 20, which was pretty impressive after struggling to get the right air flow in our last session.
Christopher was in a great mood and shared that everyone has been "really cool" lately, referring to an older student who sometimes triggers Christopher to get upset. Richard was very talkative at lunch with his peers and demonstrated more reciprocal conversation and true connection. When Christopher is upset, he often has a hard time really listening to his friends and participating in conversation. At recess, he was enthusiastic and complimentary of the new "Among Us" game that his peers created. Even though there were some "glitches" to work out, he was very patient and was a flexible group member on the playground. During our "pow-wow" after recess, he mentioned that he wasn't feeling well. He asked to find his sister so he could talk to her and call his mom. He was calmed by his sister and able to regroup for class.
Richard was a little sluggish as he often is after working hard in OT. Pokemon Go is always an excellent motivator and he got right to work with practicing our 50 words before moving on to a game of his choice. He benefitted from visual feedback of the mirror while saying his sounds. His reading teacher reported that some of the /R/ blends have been tricky for him so we targeted the /gr/ and /dr/ words using fun picture cards. Richard was happy when we finished and then we extended the activity to a story telling activity for more practice with speech, vocabulary and sequencing. He then answered WH questions with 100% accuracy about our silly story creation. What started out as a slow lesson, ended up being an excellent session.
Jonathan was excited to put the final touches on "Among Us" in real life. While writing out the tasks and directions, Jonathan identified all the words with /s/ sounds and we practiced them with 60% accuracy at the word level. Jonathan has the tongue placement down - it's the airflow that is tricky. Air is still escaping out the sides a bit so we practiced visualizing a skinny stream of air going forward. We drew it out so he could visualize it.
During recess, Richard was excited to play the new game of "Among Us" that he created with input from 2 other peers. Together their ideas were developed into a game that could be played at recess. The group seems tired of the same old recess games. Richard had big ideas that were hard to execute in real life. This was an excellent exercise to target language skills such as sequencing, planning and executing. We talked about how our directions needed to be simple and easy for all participants to understand. Richard also was focussed for sound practice and produced assorted blends in words with 70% accuracy.
