After cancelling last week’s speech therapy appointment due to illness, I was a little apprehensive about today’s session as Elizabeth was still quite grisly, which usually translated into teary tantrums. But I need not have worried. Kate, her Speech Therapist, along with Natalie, her Occupational Therapist, had set the room up with all sorts of interesting toys to try to get Elizabeth to engage with them more. And as Elizabeth is very adept at unlocking doors (she is not quite three), they set up a clam filled with balls right in front of the door. This worked perfectly as Elizabeth not once tried to escape; she had too much fun playing amongst the balls.
Through trial and error we have moved away from PECS (picture exchange) and have decided to concentrate more on Makaton (signing) and vocalization ques. Today the goal was to get Elizabeth to ask for ‘more’ through signing. Whilst she loved the bubbles, today it was music time that proved the most successful. Kate would play a favourite song of Elizabeth’s for about thirty seconds before switching it off. Elizabeth would then have to ask for ‘more’ before switching it back on. The whole scene was very animated, as we would all dance along with Elizabeth to the song.
At the end not only would Elizabeth ask for ‘more’ by placing her hand over her stomach (the sign should be ideally over her chest but any attempt at the sign is accepted at this stage) but she started vocalising the word ‘fun’. Clapping her hands together she yelled out ‘un’ five times in a row without any prompting. Like the signing, we would always repeat the correct word back to her in a sing-song voice that children particularly respond to. The word ‘say’ is banned from our vocabulary as it puts too much pressure on children and they respond by withdrawing more within themselves.
An advocate of play therapy I strongly believe in gentle encouragement rather than some of the heavier handed tactics employed by some of the programs designed for autistic children. Floortime and RDI are both excellent programs and encourages the child to engage with you through play. It is no wonder that one of my daughter’s first words is ‘fun’.
1 comment:
Hello Skye, it's nice to have these continuing glimpses of your life with Elizabeth. I'm drowning in writing at the moment with the Swinburne course. It's relentless, but apart from the emphasis on theory, interesting in all sorts of ways. I'm planning to post something about it in a couple more weeks on our shared blogsite. Thanks for your nice comment about 'Auld acquaintance'. I wrote that to amuse myself, then thought it was probably OK enough to post. Lots of background to it (some of it was true, bizarre as that sounds). Hope you're having a lovely Easter, regards Barbara
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