CEC speech clinic update

My first impression of WKU's speech clinic has turned out to be wrong! The therapy is handled by a senior student with a faculty member supervising. The first day we went, the supervisor was out for surgery and the student seemed pretty unsure of how to work with Lewis. He is not the easiest child to figure out, even with us providing a lot of info ahead of time. He was uncooperative, and she had little success staying in control of things.

The next week, the supervisor was back! Things have been going better, but there had been little work done on actually making sounds.....which is what is what you would expect "speech therapy" to focus on. Today the supervisor asked me in the observation room if Lewis ever sang songs or said the words of songs, to which I replied, "Oh, no! He doesn't say any words." Immediately, she ran into the room and began coaxing signs and sounds out of Lewis. I have to say, I was impressed. She quickly figured out how to play a simple game of stealing his cup and getting him to request it back with the sign for drink and a sound that was much like "mo" for "more."

The best part came at the end when the therapist, a student observer, and the supervisor were all singing "Itsby Bitsy Spider" with Lewis. He just started doing the motions with our DI the other day and I was hoping he would participate with the group. He watched them for a couple rounds and the supervisor held his hands and helped him do some motions, but then he started doing them on his own with the biggest smile and you would've thought they'd bought him a Mercedes, he was so happy.

He participated with so many of the tasks today, and did really well sorting fake fruit and finding animals on a board. The tasks are similar to things we are doing in his ABA program, but the directions he followed were much wordier and not what he is used to at all. It was just nice to see that he could adapt to that new environment and still use the skills he's learning in ABA. That is our goal, for sure!

There have been many heartwarming and encouraging moments the last few days which show us that we are getting somewhere. I'll try to share more when the schedule lets up!