Great first session in 2022 with Spencer. We talked a little bit about setting goals for 2022 and reflecting on what we accomplished in 2021. He wanted to move on to sports talk so we played "sportscaster" asking Siri for sports scores and statistics while commentating with our strong, confident and clear speech. We were having so much fun that he didn't even realize he was working.
Chris continues to eagerly initiate each session with highly motivating ideas and topic that he's intending to share. This continues to provide a springboard for enhancing conversational reciprocity, and supporting effective topic transitions. The session today also focused on self awareness as it has in previous sessions as well. Chris expressed greater interest in self awareness, and understanding "attention" and aspects of presupposition. Self awareness related to his role in conversation, social interactions, and in "class participation" activities was highlighted. Discussion of the possibility of using a charting system to self reflect on his own "states of being" was happily received. HIs receptive enthusiasm to be able to provide feedback about himself specifically following the initiation of an attention supporting prescription was strong.
Chris shared his excitement upon hearing that I had watched his new video that had been uploaded to his
YouTube channel earlier this morning. This afforded an unexpected opportunity to expand into the parameters of story sequence, character choices, character traits, character relationships and the use of cohesive ties within the narrative to assist with clarification of story line development. Conversational expansion across additional topics was supported with familiar strategies. Chris demonstrated increased verbal intent to change topic via use of familiar "topic starters" across three topic transitions. Review of sound target /s/ was presented once again today to ensure increased carryover and generalization of target productions into conversational speech. Strong session.
Chris was eager to initiate conversation the morning, as today's session was the first session following the holiday vacation. Chris excitedly and rapidly shared numerous details across various topics. Allowance for reciprocity was strongly supported this session as speaker -speaker overlap was frequent. Conversational turn taking was facilitated through the use of increased question -response dialogue and subsequently shaped into comment -comment dialogue with use of familiar cues and supports. Use of familiar scaffolding techniques was provided to enhance the use of cohesive ties as well as the awareness of communication partner's perspective.
Santino was seen for the first session back to school after winter break. He appeared happy throughout the session and often times, I believe breaks in school/therapy does help with overall improvement of skills. This summary is being submitted late due to website issues and personal health issues , I apologize. To be brief, we targeted the same language goals we have been working on this quarter including greetings, answering yes/no and simple wh questions, functional commenting/requesting, auditory and reading comprehension, and following directions. Santino's attention and eye contact are fleeting. We continue to work on answering safety questions without the use of cues however he continues to benefit from verbal phonemic cues or visual support. Overall, there has been progress and we will continue to work on the same goals until mastered.
Richard was seen for his first day back to school since break. This session note is being submitted late due to website errors and personal health delays, I apologize. He was happy throughout the session discussing what he did over break. The following goals were targeted in session:
sequencing using appropriate morphological and grammatical markers, speech goals (/s/, /z/, and /th/ at the conversational level, using appropriate rate of speech, language goals including past and present tense (regular and irregular), using possessives (-s), and demonstrating the understanding of figurative language. Other therapists had brought to my attention that Richard was often taking many things literally and to work on understanding figurative language and social cues. Richard did well with this task. Overall, it was a good session and Richard is a delight to teach. Improvement is being made in ST.
Chris was not relaxed during lunch. He would not eat and he said a peer was bothering him. With some quiet coaching from myself and Mr. Pat, he used his strategies of ignoring, advocating "that's not a nice thing to say," and distraction "what are you doing for Christmas?" Christopher really wanted to leave the lunch room and go to his classroom. The group was about to play Christmas bingo and Chris did not want to participate. He left the room. I convinced him to play one round and see how it goes. He agreed. He even had fun with the peer who was "triggering" him earlier. After several rounds, Chris and the other peer were both agitated so everyone agreed to end on a "high note." They both agreed it was fun while it lasted. Chris and I had a pow-wow reflecting on what felt good about that interaction and where there is room for improvement or to try different strategies. We also reviewed some strategies for staying calm during stressful times during the holiday break.
Science experiments continued with a mess. Spencer left the top of the blender off while mixing up one of his concoctions. It proved to be a big laugh and he was a team player during clean up. He likes to say he is a "master" at everything he does. Together we joked at that today, we were "master disasters" which proved to be a great source of practice with the /r/ sound.
Tristan was looking forward to playing basketball. While waiting for the older kids to join the game, we had a productive session practicing 100 /s/ words. Tristan was motivated to get the best score he could and was disappointed to get 63 out of 100. We discussed how like anything it requires practice. He agreed that he will practice more and next time get the winning number of at least 80 correct. He was sent with a list to practice over the break but he thought he'd be too busy. We discussed making more practice a goal for 2022.
Tristan likes the routine of getting outdoors and moving during our sessions. With throwing the football, playing basketball or kicking the soccer ball, he is energetic and motivated during speech practice. He still requires a model or verbal cue to produce strong /s/ but is becoming more self aware.
