summer speech #4

Last Wednesday was SJ's speech therapy session.  When his appointment was over, she said she went over the homework we had done together.  On the choosing the correct definitions homework, she reviewed the words that I needed to explain to him.  After her review, he was able to correctly choose the definition for palm and construct.  He still had difficulty with babble.  We will have to review that. 

She also reviewed the synonyms that have been challenging for him.  She reviewed 16 words.  Out of those 16, he was able to give a synonym for 7 of them (infant, job, great).  With prompting, he was able to give a synonym for 6 of them (beautiful, fearful, border).  He still couldn't give a synonym for 3 of them (tidy, calm, annoy).  We will have to review those words.

She said he did a nice job for her this week.  She said he was much more cooperative this week.  He told her about finishing up with swim team and our upcoming vacation.  I told her that I took him to see a psychotherapist to help with his anger management. 

For homework this week, she assigned him a worksheet on identifying key elements in sentences.  He did fairly well with this activity.  It was a listening activity and he repeatedly wanted to look at the paper for assistance.  Out of the 18 sentences, he only needed prompting with a few.  He seemed to have more difficulty with sentences that had proper nouns in them. 

For example:  Keith is from Florida and Latrice is from Quebec.  He needed to tell me that Keith from Florida, Latrice from Quebec.  He got Latrice from Quebec but couldn't remember where Keith was from without prompting. 

Next, we did another worksheet on choosing correct definitions for a boldfaced word.  He had 4 words and only had trouble with one.  This is the one that he had trouble with. 

wade

a. to make fun of

b. to change color

c. to walk in water or mud

d. to speak in a low voice

He had no idea what wade was.  I needed to define it for him, which was hard to do without using the words in the answer.  I did have him give me a sentence using it without assisting him.  This was his sentence.

I waded through the baby pool.

She also gave us a comprehension story to read that focused on vocabulary and semantics.  It was a two paragraph story about a family on a camping trip.  There were three questions on main idea and details.  He did well on the first two.  The third one he was guessing on, so I had him look in the story.  There were five questions on vocabulary and semantics.  He only had trouble with one of the questions.  He didn't know that "pitch the tent" meant put the tent up.  He kept telling me that this was too easy.  "Try to give me something harder next time," he said. 

Here comes the harder assignment.  She gave him a sheet on identifying descriptors that go together.  He had a lot of trouble with this.  He either gave me an answer that wasn't exactly right, he needed assisted or he had no idea.  Out of the 21 sentences, five of the answers weren't exactly right (It is very damp and cold in the basement.) He should had said wet.  Eight of the sentences, I prompted him with clues.  (Let's take it slow and steady this time.)  The last eight he just couldn't give me an answer, so I had to give it to him.  (Alan's hands always feel cold and clammy.)  This is definitely a skill that will need to be practiced.