New Speech Therapy

Ethan started speech therapy at Union Hospital today and it was a wonderful experience!  The clinician is super friendly and energetic.  The sessions are only a half hour long, so they had time to work on just two activities.  They first played with play-doh.  Ethan practiced rolling it out and cutting animal shapes with cookie cutters.  He was pretty excited because after he cut them out, he got to stick them to the wall.  I think he knows that Mommy would never let him do that at home, so it was like a special treat.  They practiced saying the names of the animals, "pop", and "roll dough".  She said that he is very "choppy" with his movements and speech, so she suggested doing activities that include rhythm.  She wants me to try to get him to sing while performing tasks.  For example, she was singing, "Roll, roll, roll your dough..." while he was rolling out the play-doh to help him get into a rhythm of rolling and talking.  Things just don't come naturally for Ethan, so LOTS of repetition is important.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.  We can practice the same words for three weeks and think that he knows them, but if we don't use them for a few days, he will sometimes forget them.  It is heartbreaking when that happens, but we can't give up.  We just have to start over again and keep practicing until he can say them spontaneously without even having to think about it.

The second activity for the day was the Mr. Potato Head.  Every kid loves him!  Callie, the clinician was having him work on saying the names of the body parts.  She then progressed to having him say the part plus the word "in" because he needs to be working toward using more two and three word phrases.  I love the way that she was addressing his sensory issues while playing with the play-doh and Mr. Potato Head.  I think that she has a clear understanding that you can work on more than one area at a time.  I truly appreciate that!  Evidently, Ethan enjoyed his session, because he talked about Callie the whole way home.  He kept saying, "Callie, POP!"  I love it when he connects with the clinicians, so this brought a smile to my face.

While I loved our experience at Union Hospital today, I have to admit that I am REALLY missing Shannon from First Steps.  We have emailed back and forth a couple of times, and although Ethan is being discharged from the program tomorrow, she seems to think that we can still come back once she returns from maternity leave.  I hope that she enjoys the time off with her new bundle of joy, but I am anxiously awaiting the day she returns!