Richard was greeted in the cafeteria as he finished up music class. He did not greet me, despite many attempts to greet him. Richard appeared somewhat tired and unmotivated when we started. He reported he was hungry. When offered a snack, he said he didn't have anything good. He did end up eating an orange that was in his lunch box. I have noticed Richard's demeanor has been quite defensive this school year. We are working on some pragmatic goals and social stories to reduce the defensive/combativeness I have been noticing, along with other therapists and teachers. Multisyllablic words, especially /s/, was targeted in conversational level to work on speech intelligibility with longer utterance and word length. Richard required moderate cues to reduce rate of speech and correct production of /s/ as he would produce /s/ with a lingual lisp. Socal/pragmatic goals were targeted on the playground for 5-10 mins with peers during games/activities - Richard does no prompting during these tasks. He stated he wants to do more activities with cooking. We will do that as well in efforts to encourage increased motivation.
Chris was eager to meet virtually this morning as he logged on at 7:45 this morning. Chris initiated conversation with excitement, as he brought his collection of vinyl records and cd covers to share. His excitement prompted his fast pace as he rapidly narrated facts about his collection. Supports to allow for pausing, reciprocal expansion, acknowledgement of partner's comment and question were successful. Allowance of more effective transitions between ideas within the shared topic with use of increased cohesive ties, temporal links and increased vocabulary specificity was supported by use of familiar cue strategies. Following these exchanges, it is noted that Chris subsequently was noted to request clarification of comment (s) when allowance of reciprocity diminished. Support for articulation clarity (/s/) phoneme production continues to be supported. His awareness of target sound production is strong within structured production. Support for carryover into conversation remains in place.
During our 2nd session of 2021-2022 school year, Richard was trying to "get out of his work" saying it was too hard. So we had a little pow-wow about not giving up when something gets hard. We can 1)ask for a small break (a few deep breaths, 1 minute of catch, have a sip of water) 2) look at the work from a different way and think about what we know and tackle the "easy" parts first 3)remind ourselves that we can do hard things and even if we don't know it yet, that is why we are in school. He was reminded of other times he did hard things and felt so good after he reached his goal. We read a quick story about a boy who had a challenge with his pet dog and how he overcame the obstacles in his way. It was a funny story and we were able to accomplish our goals of reading comprehension, auditory processing, sequencing, new vocabulary, description, and speech sounds with our strong confident voice.
Christopher was very excited at the beginning of lunch to show off where he ordered lunch from. He ordered "mr. Beast burger," a famous Youtuber. His peers and teachers had a lot of questions so this was an opportunity for Christopher to engage in conversation with many of them. He was excited and welcomed the attention. After recess, where Christopher played cooperatively with the large group of kids. He was generous and helpful to the younger kids during tag and demonstrated good sportsmanship when his peers or older kids tagged him. During our pow-wow after recess, we discussed some of the basics of reciprocal conversation and how to answer questions with a relevant answer. Not with what he wants to talk about. We talked about how even though he was excited, he still has to listen to what his friends are asking and saying. We discussed turn taking and how the flow of a meaningful conversations should go. We practiced a little bit and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Mr. Beast, famous YouTuber.
Spencer was excited to play the game "uno" and learn the new rules. He just finished recess so was full of excitement after the big game of tag. We had some water and talked about how to get focussed for work. We discussed the foundation of being a strong, confident communicator. Not only is that how we pronounce our sounds but how we position our body when talking to people, how we listen, how we use our eyes to watch for nonverbal cues, how we pace our speech and how we project our voice. We experimented with some different variations and had fun with that. We discussed how we can have fun without totally losing focus in "silly mode." When we used a strong, deep, loud voice, he insisted on "arm wrestling." We discussed who it is appropriate to arm wrestle (playful family members) and who it is not (teachers, peers, strangers).
Tristan was in a great mood and eager to see the promised activities from last week. He couldn't remember if he knew the game "Uno" so he was excited to learn. Tristan was convinced that he knew the rules and tried to set up the game "his"way. We pulled out the instructions and Tristan did not want to read them. I claimed to have forgotten my glasses so "we couldn't play unless he read the instructions/rules." He reluctantly did and he learned the way to play and loved it. We talked a little about strong speech and confident communication and what that entails. He was disappointed that we ran out of time but eager to tell his brother about it and introduce the game to him.
Chris continues to exhibit excitement as the sessions commence. Conversational expansion was strong this session, as topic maintenance was sustained with notable increases in vocabulary specificity, and strong use of cohesive ties. Response to requests for clarification when details within topic reference was not "shared knowledge" were strong. These opportunities today allowed for increased expansion into the aspects of presupposition, perspective taking, and the acknowledgment of body language, intonational shifting, facial expression and gesture.
Use of topic transition phrases continues to be utilized as Chris is becoming more successful with supporting the communicative cycle within topic shifting. Attention was strong today. He shared that he was excited to meet next week so he could share some new "things" as the session came to a close.
Richard was excited to reconnect after the summer break. He was eager to share an update on his Pokemon collection and other cool parts of his summer. We began with a language activity summarizing his camping trip, which he was very excited for at the end of the school year. Using a map of a campsite and images of camping equipment, Richard recalled some of the highlights of his trip. Although there were signs of maturity in his storytelling, sequencing, description, vocabulary, and details were difficult during this task. He was impressed by a building activity completed across the hall by another student, so we attempted that while practicing our speech sounds. He was frustrated by the building task with suction cups and gave up quickly. We used this opportunity to discuss our goals and how we problem solve, take breaks, and try again instead of giving up.
Spencer was upset and icing his legs when we began. He said he fell on the playground and that now his bug bites hurt. He quickly forgot about his bug bites once we began a building exercise. Using suction cup connectors, Spencer was very creative in planning, engineering, building, and problem solving a bridge across his room. It was obvious that when Spencer was fully engaged and committed to a goal, that he can do anything. We used this growth mindset lesson to discuss our goals with communication and how we can be creative/fun but still accomplish our work for mastering our goals. Spencer was on board with the verbal contract and it was sealed with a fist pump.
Richard was greeted in his classroom as he was finishing his class with Ms. Debbie. Richard was happy upon arrival. We targeted day of week/date. His grippers for his pencils to assist with writing skills were replenished. We started to target /th/ in initial position, and he achieved 70% accuracy. It was noticed throughout the session, Richard was using more of a lingual thrust during g/s/ productions. Therefore /th/ will hold off until /s/ in conversation in mastered. In order to target /s/, we discussed topic of interest. Richard independently produced /s/ accurately with ~75%. We then targeted multi-syllabic words at the sentence level. Richard required moderate cues to over articulate and reduce the rate of speech. This was a helpful task for him. We finished with playing Candy Land - pulling together all of the speech goals at the conversational level. Overall, it was a good session.
