Spencer was motivated to check out his science projects. While tasting them, he got stuck on how sour the kool-aid is if not diluted. It turned into a lot of great /r/ practice with saying sour over a 100 times. He thought it was so funny but I said it was an awesome way to master a tricky sound and word.
Spencer is still showing excitement and motivation with the YouTube science projects. Using our leftover materials, we made another kool-aid freezer pop. He described the steps while demonstrating strong /r/ sounds.
Tristan was very focussed on an art project and had a hard time transitioning to speech therapy. We continued the art project while describing the tracing of characters and focused on some good vocabulary and /r/ practice.
Christopher was in a great mood after the Thanksgiving break. He said that all went smoothly and that he paid attention to "how the engine" was running if he felt himself getting upset. He was very social at lunch and has improved his conversational skills with peers during lunch. He also is showing flexibility on the playground during recess.
Spencer was excited to connect and remembered all our plans for today's lesson. He was eager to know if I had brought all the ingredients. He is very organized and an effective communicator when he is motivated by a task. We continued with our pursuit of the perfect science experiment in the freezer. He was on task and /r/ sounds were on target.
Tristan was feeling a little tired after the holiday week away. We took the session outside into the fresh air and threw the football while practicing our /s/ words. He got a burst of energy with the movement and finished with a strong session.
Richard was excited about the Christmas tree in his room. We used it as a language and speech activity planning all the additional decorations that he wanted to add to it. He was very organized and descriptive with his language. Speech was a little rushed due to the excitement of Christmas so we did some breathing to work on pacing and calming ourselves when over excited.
Santino was greeted as he got to school for the day. He reportedly ate a large meal and may be tired. Santino did yawn quite a few times throughout our sessions today however he was happy and attentive. Mr. Marcus reported Santino was doing well with math/numbers. He also stated he noticed an improvement with his overall language. Santino completed his daily routine of putting his backpack away, bringing his chairs to the table and getting a book to start the session with. He independently requested a Christmas book and picked it out himself after reading the title. We targeted the usual goals during the book activity - attention (fleeting), commenting with prompting, naming verbs based on "what doing" questions, vocabulary, and answering simple questions. This was a pop out book that he seemed to enjoy. Following that, we did answering safety questions. Santino continues to require verbal/visual prompting for his name and address. We did a seasonal craft activity that targeted not only speech and language but fine motor tasks as well such as coloring, cutting with scissors and glueing. Santino required moderate multimodal cues for this tasks to follow the directives, however he did quite well. We did a lot of cutting and he responded well to hand over hand placement of scissors then "open, cut, open cut, open, cut" while I was moving the paper. I spoke to his art teacher as well to target more fine motor skills with coloring. Santino would benefit from occupational therapy to target these goals as well. We ended the session with ADLs - changing his diaper with assist, putting his shoes on (independently!), putting his shorts on with assist, and washing hands with assist. This is starting to get easier for him and it is an important functional goal to gain more independence. He has been consistently answering yes/no questions appropriately and I am so proud of that! Keep up the good work, Santino.
Chris quickly initiated conversation as he was curious as to thoughts about his hair style this morning. This afforded an opportunity for a wonderful expanded exchange which rapidly included the discussion of the different hairstyles of the many rock stars he admires. Increased cycles of exchange were noted, and familiar supports were provided to allow for more continuity, rather than repetition of an utterance which is often utilized as a tool for listener reaction. Allowance for novel topic discussion was strong today, with noted increases in self awareness and perspective taking. Topic shift was supported with familiar cues in order to best facilitate fluid topic transition and increased use of cohesive ties. Strong session today.
Chris was once again eager to initiate conversation and share details about the new "trailer" that he had created in anticipation of the new "video series" that he is intending on posting on YouTube in January. Chris was extremely successful today as he shared details within his narrative description of his video series with use of strong cohesive links. Chris has continued to demonstrate increased mindfulness regarding the dynamics of the nonverbal cues, gestures, and facial expressions within communication cycles to support topic transition. He was observed to verbally state his intention to topic shift with appropriate timing across three varied conversational exchanges. In addition, target production of the /s/ phoneme continues to be noted with 80% accuracy within structured word tasks. Strong session today.
