Give Me Words to Speak...Therapy Sessions

As many of you know (if you've been following) I have a chatty child (Little Britches) and a silent child (Baby Britches). Baby Britches (33 months) is quiet and serious. But he's TOO quiet. As I discussed in some of {earlier posts}, we had him tested and he ranked super high in the receptive speech and what he can understand and such. But he tested *severe* for his Expressive speech and it was determined that he needed weekly speech therapy.

We have had two therapy session so far. Our first one last week went okay--though Miss Katie spent the first 15 minutes just trying to get him to interact with her. Thankfully he finally did...but it is very frustrating when he doesn't cooperate considering it's only a 30 minute session.

We were given some flashcards for him to work on--one set with short simple words with easy sounds to say (pie, pea, no, me, tie, tea, bee, moo, may, day, whoa) and then one with easy double syllable words (tato, people, nana, daddy, mommy, baby, bubble, turtle, puppy). She tested him with them at the first lesson and he didn't do very many.

We've been working with him over the past week---he didn't want to work with me nor my husband at first. But when Little Britches grabbed them, he could get Baby Britches to repeat for him. That was the icebreaker. From then on we've been able to review them...the only ones he has issues with are "me" and "mommy".

Today at his session, I was so happy he just jumped right in this time and whipped through all his single syllable words. He passed 100%--even getting "me" which he wouldn't do at home. He passed all the double syllable ones EXCEPT for "mommy"--surprise surprise. Sigh....

The little stinker happily chimed "daddy!" with a smile and light in his eyes...but when it came to the mommy card...he just shook his head and said "no!" Won't even try it!

[One of these days I will hear my name...and I will cry. I know I will...]

But Miss Katie was happy that he'd passed so well this week! She tried some other cards and he did okay on them. We are now continuing his two syllable words, but adding in words that end in consonants so we can hear endings. She gave us some new cards for this week.

I love the way she works with him. She lets him have a toy--and then she has him say words to earn play time with it. For instance, today was all about Mr. Potato Head. She had him say "tato" to get the potato portion. Then every so many words he could choose a piece. And if he had choices between pieces she would have him speak for them...

It went something like this...

"Justin--do you want Mr. Potato Head's mouth?

(Justin nods)

"Okay, can you tell me what this card is?"

(He says the card)

"Great Job! Do you want the blue mouth or the red mouth?"

"Boo!"

"Great job! Can you say "Blue...Mouth"?

"Mow boo!"

"Good trying! This IS a blue mouth!"

And she hands it to him...

He is very receptive to this style and does extremely well with it. I really enjoy Miss Katie. It appears she is just what he needs!

On the general front, he's really doing well. The amount he speaks now is night and day beyond where he was 6 weeks ago. He is connecting things--like he will raise and lower things and go "up-down-up-down" and then he'll move a door and go "open.....open....open..." and his letters. He continues to amaze me with his letter recognition! He can tell me letters whether upper or lowercase.

I truly feel that if we get his speech in gear, he'll be reading. Simple as that. He'll be ready to learn how to read....and that's rather exciting!

As for two word sentences...the most he's doing right now is to put the words "no" and "please" with other words and he MIGHT put a color with another word (Blue Bubbles). But that is a starting place and way ahead of where we were less then 2 months ago.

We have a two week break from therapy (she's on vacation) but that gives us time to work on the cards she gave us and continue our efforts to get him to do 2 word sentences...we are going back to Washington state to visit my parents this summer and I would love it if he could at least call them by name.

Or me by name...yeah. Let's go with that first...

*This is an affiliate link to some of the toys and learning materials we use to help Justin speak. I recommend them for anyone with Toddler-Kindergarten age kids!