Tristan was excited to go outside for our session but first asked him to complete a quick iPad game that gave us lots of opportunities for strong /r/ practice. He resisted at first, but then heard the older boys were heading out to play basketball and that motivated him to get his work done first. He did great work and was focussed on tongue position for a strong /r/. He then wanted to discuss basketball strategy so he could "be awesome" with the big kids. He was excited to be included.
Christopher was having a rough day and did not want to participate in tag at first. After a pep talk acknowledging that Mondays can be challenging, we reviewed some ways to get ourselves in the game. He ended up joining and having a really good time playing the "infection" version of tag that requires some teamwork.
Spencer was excited to show me a reinforcement chart that he is working with. He was proud to show all the checks for staying on task without difficulty. Playing a memory game on the iPad, Spencer practiced his strong /s/ sounds. He was resistant at first to play the game but said that it was entertaining and that he can really control his sounds when he focusses on it.
Richard was stuck on the idea that he needed to complete a mask so we turned it into a language activity with describing vocabulary and sequencing the steps. It required executive functioning skills of planning and organizing. He often likes to jump to the activity without the necessary preparation. His speech has become a little sloppy again, so we returned to the basics of slowing down to say every sound and not skipping or dropping sounds.
The session commenced with Chris "apologizing " for not being in school on Monday (Presidents's Day) and missing our session. He shared that he had something "exciting" to talk about. He presented his new notebook of "ideas." We reviewed the video ideas and elaborated on the sequence, and organizational strategies that can best support use of the notebook. He subsequently decided to add " TOP SECRET" to the cover. Allowance for conversational reciprocity was stronger this session, as Chris was noted to acknowledge instances of speaker -speaker overlap with use of strategies to repair the overlap such as "Wait, What?" and "Oh Sorry Ms. Lynne, What?"
Supports for use of effective topic transition strategies were facilitative and Chris was noted to utilize "familiar phrases" to shift topic such as "by the way," as well as indicate his intent within the conversation as he was noted to state "Ms. Lynne, Wait, I want to go back and keep talking about this." Strong session today.
Chris excitedly initiated conversation this morning as he rapidly shared ideas and topics that were clearly on his mind. Supports for speaker -speaker overlap were highlighted as familiar reflective listening and "self awareness" cues were provided. Topic transitions were subsequently supported with familiar scaffolding strategies and Chris successfully utilized effective cohesive ties across transitions 5 times during the session. Expanded vocabulary use continues to be utilized within novel sentence constructs.
Chris continues to demonstrate increased use of expanded vocabulary across topics. He continues to initiate sessions with strong motivation and eagerness to engage in tasks of increased linguistic demand. Conversational expansion continues to be characterized by increased cycles of speaker-listener exchange. Chris was noted to utilize familiar topic transition phrases across 5 topic shifts this session, and an increase in the frequency of contingent response expansion was noted. Aspects of self awareness and presupposition continue to be highlighted each session. Continued support for generalization of target /s/ phoneme production was also emphasized this session.
Richard was greeted at his classroom. He transitioned well into session. We covered language goals during conversational speech. Working on auxiliary verbs (is/are) and the use of plurals and past tense. As stated before, Richard has been omitting /s/ as well as is/are. We targeted /th/ in the initial position at the sentence level. Richard is ~70% accurate independently requiring minimal cues. In addition, we continue to work on carrying over /s/ in all positions at the conversational level. Richard spent some time outside playing tag with 4 peers. This was to target social skills and pragmatics however it should be noted Richard has made significant gains in this area. His play skills with peers were appropriate on the playground. He initiated play and reciprocated nicely. Overall, it was a great improvement. I am happy to see the progress he continues to make with his pragmatic and social skills. We will continue to target speech and language skills.
Santino was greeted in the lobby with a HUGE smile on his face. He was so happy throughout both sessions today. He was very attentive and made nice eye contact with me. Santino independently requested a book without prompting. When asked "where" to get the book - w/ phonemic cues, he responded with "library". He picked out a book and I also picked out a book that would target many of his goals. The Fisher Price Look and Find Farm book was great for "where" questions giving a visual cue. "Where is the rooster" (in the farm, on the hay ) etc. We went outside for a short time while other students were playing. There is no initiation with others however it is evident that he is benefiting from the social exposure and language from peers. He has been enjoying playing outside again recently which is fantastic. Also - when we were back at the table and I was asking "do we need to change..." Santino quickly responded with "change diaper? yes". So we did ADL's of him working on changing his own diaper, putting his shoes back on, washing his hands, etc. The routine is becoming more natural for him however still requires some assistance. Santino's joint attention was better today. Santino has started requesting breaks from the table between tasks which are granted. He transitions well to the next task. Santino's overall speech and language skills are improving.
Richard was greeted and transitioned well to his room. We again discussed keeping his space organized and clean to help him stay organized and prepared for school. We briefly covered the calendar/date. We worked hard on language skills today including the omission of auxiliary verbs (is/are). For example, Richard was telling me a story and was frequently omitting the use of is/are, "The the one I picked" rather than "that is the one I picked". We targeted identifying the error when it happened however Richard demonstrated difficulty in this area. I communicated this language concern with Andrea (his other SLP) to collaborate and assure we are targeting similar goals. We targeted past tense both regular and irregular on an app. The app was interactive and allowed to Richard to practice reading, spelling and using phonemic awareness. Richard demonstrates difficulty with reading/writing and the concepts of phonetics and phonemic awareness. This was a great activity that covered many goals of his. Also, rate of speech and weak articulatory contact was effecting overall intelligibility today so we frequently covered this during session. Finally, we targeted processing and word finding. Richard benefits from accommodations with this including increased time to process. Overall, it was a very productive session covering both speech and language goals.
