Re: Re: [ Quiet lately. Echoics

[Guest guest]

Jennie,

A couple of months ago, I posted on the ME-list about the success I was having

getting sounds out of Kenny.

I strongly believe that when a child has issues MAKING the sounds (as both Kenny

and Isaac do) that they are less motivated to try to speak because they are

thinking to themselves " I can't say that " .

To summarize what we are doing, I spend 30 minutes twice a day sitting in front

of a mirror with Kenny working on sounds. I put my face next to his, so both he

and I can see how I make a sound. (This was important, because before I

actually watched myself, I made several mistakes trying to prompt him for a

sound.) I tackle one sound at a time until he gets it. And I also work his

tongue a little before even attempting sounds. (Tongue straight out, tongue to

the sides, tongue UP -- this last one is VERY important, and quite difficult.)

I prompt using my fingers, hands, whatever it takes to get the shape of his

mouth correct, and his tongue in the proper position.

I also reserve his FAVORITE reinforcer (choc chip Frookies) for speech only.

We use a token board. He must make the sound 3 times before he gets the piece

of cookie. (I use one cookie for a 30 minute session, so the pieces are VERY

small -- but he is allergic to eggs, so I don't want him to have a lot.)

Because he also has issues with reversing the sounds (good becomes dog), I have

made words which I put up on the mirror so he can both hear and see what I'm

saying. (I make them on the computer, laminate them, and use DICEM to hold them

up.)

We usually work on one sound for about a week, but continue to review his other

sounds. So, this past week, we worked on getting better " O " sounds. Words we

used were " token " , " go " , " no " , " toe " , " potato " , etc. I allow him to sound out

the words, and reinforce if he gets the target sound. (For example, potato

didn't always sound quite right, but if he got the O sound, he got a token.)

During the course of the week, I noticed that he was making his " n " sound as he

would a " g " -- that is, from the back of his throat, instead of by putting his

tongue up to his front teeth. So I started emphasizing " D " and " T " words again,

and worked on getting his tongue to touch his teeth.

Anyway, you probably get the gist of this....

Now that he is better able to make the sounds, I find I can get him to use them

more outside of therapy. Every time we need to use a word that I know he has

the sounds to make, I write it down and make a word for the mirror. Once he's

practiced it, he knows he can do it, and then he's more likely to say the word

outside of the therapy room.

Also, as we say the words in the mirror, instead of using the traditional SD

" Say ____ "

I instead tell him about the word. For example, when I put up the word " duck " ,

I say, " You see these when we walk around the pond -- DUCK " . And of course,

when we do walk around the pond, I make sure to get him to point and say " duck " .

I might say, " oh look in the water over there Kenny, what's that? " If I don't

get a response, I might say " d.... " and wait. I might try that once or twice,

then say " du... " and usually he will get it.

Feel free to email me privately if you need more details about anything ...

(Cary, NC)

cindy.p@...

[ ] Re: [ Quiet lately. Echoics

> From: Jennie Ladew <jennie@...>

>

> Dear List,

> When we went to the Carbone conference, we had VERY limited echoics that

> were perhaps 70-80% consistent, and were done in the more traditional

> verbal imitation drill format. I am talking about sounds and not word

> echoics. As we made some changes, grappling with how to make this work, we

> have had some successes.

> In fact, it is the one area, I think I can safely say, we have made

> probably the strongest gain, although still nothing terribly dramatic

> compared to what some people have reported. Given where we've been and

> Isaac's history, I am still pleased.

> We do not know how to do this that well, have limited staff and experience,

> and we're all trying to figure out what we work on and how often and how to

> maintain some stability, program quality and progress in several areas that

> pertain to my son's IEP.

> Anyhow, I think we have around ten to twelve echoics now, and it does vary,

> some days, we're pretty close to 100% and other days closer to the 70%,

> rarely less, if you count both sessions we actively address this. These are

> some sounds, but generally words or approximations that we all recognize

> and agree stand in for a word, On-Ah (long O)

> for Donut, (This week he was able to use it as a mand while at Dunkin

> Donut's over a dozen times, and a few of those without any prompting, just

> pure manding.) O-Da or O-ah for Soda at Mc's, and IES for fries at

> Mc's, and he even said, FIES twice when his therapist made him wait

> longer than he wanted. :-) So, they are starting to become mands with some

> encouragement and practice, but are still not strong mands, but are pretty

> strong echoics now. He is also saying, a few others immediately when asked

> to echo, and a couple have become words versus approximations. I would like

> some more suggestions on how people do this, how often and any tricks you

> all might have to get sounds, etc. Isaac had apraxic issues, etc., and some

> sounds just are not in his repetoire at all or very rare.

>

> Jennie

>

>

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[Guest guest]

In a message dated 3/15/00 9:09:11 PM Central Standard Time,

cindy.p@... writes:

> I strongly believe that when a child has issues MAKING the sounds (as both

> Kenny

> and Isaac do) that they are less motivated to try to speak because they are

> thinking to themselves " I can't say that " .

>

, Jennie and others.

We have worked with Colin intensively, with and without professional

supervision, for more than seven years. We have used a mirror, written cues,

to die for reinforcers, microphones and other sound enhancers. And at age

nine Colin can produce maybe 40% of the sounds used to speak English. He

cannot voice any of them which is maybe a breath support issue or a motor

planning type problem. One word that he tries sooo HARD to say is PIGGIES.

He produces all the sounds of the individual letters in order including both

" g " s. All the vowels sound the same: an indistinct vowel-like sound. The

rest are pretty good but whispered and not blended. It sort of sounds like

spelling but he cannot say the letter names.

Despite all the effort that is so obviously involved, Colin's rendition

of PIGGIES is positively unintelligible. He demonstrates his " communicative

intent " by getting your attention, placing his bare foot in your hand and

pointing to his toes while saying PIGGIES insistently and looking from your

eyes to his toes. If you also happen to know that Colin is obsessed with the

piggy rhyme, you will catch on.

I hope this does not sound terribly discouraging. We still work on

trying to have Colin use verbalizations to help him communicate. He is an

excellent communicator using an augmentative device. Yesterday he asked one

of his therapists to sing and chose that old favorite Farmer Dell for her to

sing. Each time she got to the place where the animal is named, she stopped

until Colin would use his device to name an animal. He started with the

usual farm animals but when he had run through those he added

hard-to-make-a-sound for animals like FISH and PORCUPINE.

From what I have been able to figure out about the VBT or S & P or NET

method (the Madison Workshop is next week!), one of its most valuable

attributes is that it gets the child using expressive language and

communicating even if all the skills are not quite there. I think that doing

that even through a device has been crucial for Colin.

[Guest guest]

At 03:04 AM 3/16/00 -0000, rakowskifamily@... wrote:

>From: rakowskifamily@...

>

>Jennie,

>

>Just out of curiosity...have you tried DMG or TMG from Kirkman Labs?

>My son's articulation with the mands was much like yours. Some words

>were clear, but most were partial sounds. Three days after taking

>TMG, Lance was echoing & manding more clearly. I'm excited to see if

>the improvement continues.

>

>Cheryl

Cheryl,

Hi, I will answer briefly since this is not directly about DTT or NET and

don't to get off topic, but yes, we used to use DMG with some actual MILD,

but positive benefit, and lately had tried it again after a break without

as much, however we were giving way, way less and he is a LOT bigger, so

we need to try it again. I am thinking of ordering the TMG instead of DMG

and giving it a whirl.

I am seeing some progress, but am checking out a woman I have heard who is

very good with oral motor issues and apraxia issues for an evaluation and

some home program exercises, because I am not entirely pleased with the

local people, etc. (SLP)

We still have not gotten any mands using the new signs without prompting or

modeling first, but he is starting to imitate an ASL sign for movie/film to

watch a tape when we demonstrate first, and he finally has a good

approximation of the sign, BOOK. He is trying to verbally say Movie,

Moo-ie, but for some reason no book which he used to say a long time ago.

He rarely uses any sign, but HELP or EAT spontaneously and more likely to

say what he can, so I am hoping maybe he'll decide trying to speak is

easier for him.

Jennie

[Guest guest]

>

>I strongly believe that when a child has issues MAKING the sounds (as both

Kenny

>and Isaac do) that they are less motivated to try to speak because they are

>thinking to themselves " I can't say that " .

Thank you . This was very interesting and I think I'll borrow some

ideas. ;-) I notice that Ize is trying to say some of the word cards we use

for his sight reading program, so this may blend well together.

Isaac is not using language in the traditional sequence, for instance still

having trouble with B sound, never mind B words right now, yet having no

trouble with hard C, and has six C words, most of them pretty clear, even

to people who do not know him! He can say, C'mon, Come here, Cookie,

Cracker, (sometimes - Cake) and Coat, but he has stopped saying Baby, and

struggles with Bye, and usually just waves.

Don't ask me why! He just started saying Daddy a bit garbled, but

consistently and understandably to us and anyone familiar with him,

although mostly probably not real clear to strangers yet, but close. And

today he said, Doggy and Dorthy fairly clearly, enough where my ears perked

right up and I did a double take! He was watching, Wizard of Oz, beloved

video beween staff, and after lunch. So, it seems that the D sound is

starting to click and this apparently how he is learning to talk again. I

am very confused, but because it is so new, and not yet consistent, I am

not sure if I will ever hear those words again in the near future or at

all, but I do know the D sound is there some place. Yet, in our echoic

drill, he could not say the D at all, so we broke the word down and he

says, On-Ah as I reported in another post for Donut. Maybe soon we can get

the D on the front.

I need to get a mirror for working on this stuff. I probably could do it

now. He was so obsessed with mirrors that we were covering them up for a

while, but this seems pretty low key right now.

Jennie