after school speech part 36

I was away last week, so my husband took SJ to his weekly speech appointment.  She worked on his conversational skills.  She gave him a work sheet that had a word bank.  He had to fill in the blanks with the appropriate missing words. 

For example:  It is rude to butt in and __________ someone who is talking.  SJ had to select "interrupt" to complete the sentence.  After she helped him select the correct word, she went over what the word meant.  He did 6 of the sentences with his therapist and he has the remainder to complete for homework.

She also worked on the skill of taking turns when a person is talking to someone.  She told him that partners take EQUAL turns talking and listening.  This is an important thing to point out to SJ.  He tends to want to only talk about what interests him and he assumes everyone is as excited about his favorites as he is.  (Although I will say, he is getting much better at turn taking.)  She also told him that people don't like to be SHUT OUT of a conversation.  They want equal time to talk.

She had him practice taking short turns in a conversation.  She let him pick a topic.  He was allowed to talk for 30 seconds.  Some of the topics were your favorite game, what you like to do on the weekend and plane travel.

She assigned him for homework that we use some of these topics to prompt SJ to ask questions.  If he picked a subject such as plane travel, she suggested that we steer him towards making the questions more personal.  He could ask "Have you ever been on a plane?" instead of "Why do planes fly?" 

We will use the list of topics this week to practice SJ's conversation skills.  I am hoping with practice he will learn the social cues that people give when he his overtaking a conversation.  With his eye contact getting better, he will just have to remember to focus on their actions.  Easier said than done!