Today 1. course news and 2. domestic wreckage update

[Guest guest]

The course at Cambridge: I went for today only. The content was very

largely to do with helping children with articulatory problems and

autism to speak, so wasn't relevant except incidentally to Henry.

The speaker, Tamara Kasper, was good. One very interesting thing she

said was that in someone with no or few speech sounds the first thing

to work on was respiration - to start breathing out through the mouth,

eg panting. So exercise which leads to panting could be useful. She

said that often before speech sounds the child would consciously

practise laughung - a real laugh could turm into an extended practice

one. (Has anyone seen the You tube video HaHaHa recently ? About 64

million people have now seen it.) One delegate was working on helping

their adult sibling to start speaking - and they received

encouragement. She also demonstrated practical ways to support the

particular sound wanted.

Domestic wreckage: before 7 am today H wrenched another kitchen unit

door off its hinges, damaging the cabinet. Tonight he jumped on the

sofa and a horrible noise came from its innard. On investigation, it

was discovered he had broken three springs....so now the sofa sags

sadly...

Margaret