after school speech part 33

On Tuesday, SJ had his weekly speech therapy session.  The therapist started the session with a comprehension activity.  She had SJ read aloud the following story.

Maggie needs to write a report on Antarctica.  It is for a group project.  She promised her team she would have it done tomorrow morning.  It just turned eight o'clock and she is only getting started.  Maggie's bedtime is nine o'clock.  She knows it will take at least two hours to do her report.  She is also very tired and can hardly keep her eyes open.  

She planned to write her report right after school.  When she walked in the door, though, the phone rang.  Her friend Sheena was calling.  She invited Maggie out for pizza.  Maggie's mom said she could go.  Maggie had not told her mom about the report.  Maggie told her mom that she didn't have any homework.  Now she knows she probably won't get the report done tonight.  Her team will not get the project finished on time. 

Then, SJ had to answer questions on Main Ideas, Details and Problem Solving.  SJ missed the first question. 

1. What is the main idea of this story?
 a. Maggie writes a report on Antarctica
 b. Maggie goes out with a friend instead of studying.

SJ chose B when he should have chosen A.  He did get the next two questions correct.  When he got to the questions on Problem Solving, he amazingly got all the questions correct.  Way to go SJ! 

The therapist then started to work on his tone of voice.  Sometimes children on the spectrum can sound monosyllabic (or robotic).  She was demonstrating to him how a different tone of voice can change the meaning of the same sentence.  She said he had some trouble with this.  She said she would continue to work on that skill, as we will at home too.

Last, she wanted to focus on Topic Maintenance.  She showed SJ the following diagram.

 

She told him they were going to talk about vacations (the topic).  He could tell her a few things about his vacation, but then he would have to ask her some questions about the topic.  If he strayed from the topic, she would point to the lower symbol.  When he got back to the topic, she pointed to the top symbol.  This is a great visual for him.  When he is not repeating and actually talking to you, he inadvertently has the conversation being one sided.  (And you know who is doing all of the talking.)  This is a great reminder that he is talking to someone else and not to get sidetracked off of the subject. 

She also assigned us a homework sheet on Figurative Language.  I haven't gotten to that yet.  That is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.  I decided that I would save the speech homework for the weekend, since his teachers rarely give homework on Fridays.