SLP

Hi Jen. Greetings will still take a while, says Jen. He's not picking up on them, but she says this can take lots of work. He WILL repeat a greeting, but not do it on his own. He only does it when you say 'TELL JEN HI.' That's ok. We'll keep trying. One day he'll surprise us. Choices... Choices... We always work on choices. The game of choice today was Cars. She shows him 2 cars and asks him which one he wants. "Would you like a Green Car or a Red Wagon?" He did what he usually does, which is to say back to her "Green Car, Red Wagon......... Green Car...." and then... BREAKTHROUGH She modeled with ME "Would you like a Red Train or a Blue Jeep?" and I said to her "I want a Blue Jeep" (My choice was without the repetition) On his next turn... he chose what he wanted without repetition. He just said "Red Car" We also continued with greetings in a lift-the-flap book, and he focused more on the numbers than anything. He was already getting tired of the session, so we didn't push him too much. 9 weeks & 7 hours of Speech Therapy. Countless hours of us working with him at home. Part of me is frustrated that we're doing the same things over and over. Part of me understands that repetition is the best way for him to learn. We can't expect that something not coming naturally will be mastered in one 45 min session. I continue trying to not feel guilty for not spending MORE time working on all this stuff. I continue to try to tell myself that I am NOT a full time therapist... Im a mom trying to do the best I can with EVERYTHING that needs to be done... not JUST therapy maintenance. Now, help me remember that. In the meantime... he's not doing bad. He has had improvement. He is Much faster with choices. As we saw today, he is overcoming at least SOME of his echolalia (it did not translate into other situations, only with the car choices that I modeled for him. Translating it to all choices will take a lot more work) He is answering Yes/No questions without echolalia fairly consistently & accurately. He is getting better at processing our questions and focusing on what we're trying to ask.