Wednesday Workout - Self Advocacy

This is something we've been working on for quite some time and will continue to work on for years to come. For us, it's happened in stages, each stage equally exciting and ones you never forget - so exciting that it's baby book (or blog) material:

1. Does not tear off CI when put on - actually wears it most of day showing he LOVES to hear.
2. When coil falls off, puts coil back on without assistance - showing he LOVES to hear.
3. When whole CI falls off onto floor, actually PICKS it up and brings it to you to put back on - showing he LOVES to hear.
4. ASKS for CI first thing in the morning or right after bath - showing he LOVES to hear.
5. When processor portion falls off ear (coil still connected), comes and says, "My CI! Help please." - showing he hates the feeling of it just dangling ; )
6. Tells you (with words) that the CI has turned off and is not working (although still on ear and coil attached to head) - showing he LOVES to hear.

and not that it ends there. Not even close. In fact, that's just the beginning of true self advocacy - truly letting people know, "Hey, I didn't hear you" and it has to start now. I don't want Aiden to be shy about speaking up for himself. I don't want him to feel apologetic for missing a piece of information because he didn't hear them. If he's having technicalities with his CIs, I want him to speak up and seek out the help he may need to get that technicality fixed. If he's having trouble hearing due to where he's sitting in class, or standing in a room, or whatever the reason may be, I want him to feel comfortable, not embarrassed, to SPEAK up for himself.

Unfortunately, Aiden has come home a few times already this school year with one of his implants OFF. Yes, OFF. We have Aiden's lights turned on for this reason - if they're blinking fast - he's good to go, slow - something's wrong, off - the CIs off. This is all documented in his notebook, with each error code, what the error means, and how to troubleshoot it. I've also met with his teacher before school started and gave a quick demo on them. It's hard to say if it turned off on the bus, was never turned on appropriately after nap (oh the thought!), fell off, and while the teacher or aide was putting it back on it turned off (not totally uncommon when putting it on - that's why it's important to do a quick ling check or check the lights), etc. I've talked with his teacher each time about it, but if it happens again, I will call the principal and ask to come in and explain Aiden's CIs to everyone who he is with throughout the day.

in the meantime ...

I'm teaching Aiden, that HE needs to tell the teacher or the aide or whomever he may be around - "HEY, my CI isn't working."

note: stop the music to the right. sorry it's so small too!

so proud!

Wednesday Workout - Cheap Therapy

I LOVE the dollar aisle at Target. They always have the neatest things - from chip bowls, to cute holiday platters, to THERAPY toys! All typically TWO BUCKS or less.

I picked up these foam shaped blocks for a dollar a couple weeks ago. They have become Aiden's favorite thing to do and we have spent countless hours of therapy play time with them.

Here are some language goals that we're currently working on with Aiden:

• Use of pronouns
• Understand quantitative concepts of some, rest, all
• Answers what and where questions.
• Understands questions with post-noun elaboration (white kitten that is sleeping)
• Understands spatial concepts of next to, in front of, in back of
• Identifies advanced body parts such as forehead, wrist, eyelashes

and some auditory goals:

• Recall four critical elements in a message
• Sequence a series of multi-element directions

In addition to these, there's also OT, speech goals, speech babble, cognitive etc to think about. The more you can do to incorporate all into one lesson, the better ... and these $1 foam blocks, did just that!

Aiden creating his own pattern

• Pronouns - emphasized use of me, I, mine, my, you, and your(s) throughout playtime (Aiden refers to himself as "Aiden" instead of me or mine).
• Sentence expansion - As we played, I would put four or five blocks aside. Since Aiden mainly speaks in two-three word sentences, I always expand it to four or five words, with emphasis on the extra word I include. He seems to imitate better if I have something he can "touch" for each word said. For example, "I have ALL squares." and I would touch one block for each word spoken, then he would do the same describing what he had. I've also used scraps of paper or pennies for this too.
• Syllable work aka speech babble. This really helps with his articulation and expanding sentences. Right now we're working on simple speech babble up to four syllables (again, by touching each block, helps him get the four syllables out instead of stopping at two or three: ba-ba-ba-ba, bo-bo-bo-bo, be-be-be-be, ba-bo-ba-bo etc). This is very helpful with his speech motor planning and oral motor skills.
• Auditory memory - build a tower, as instructed by mom ("...two circles, two orange squares, then a green star on top"), then BLOW it down - (good for oral motor and breath control)
• PATTERNS! I would create a row of blocks and as I made it, I'd say, "orange square, blue circle, orange square, blue circle". Before I knew it, he was making patterns with three-four elements all on his own, and would say, "orange square, blue square, circle, star, orange square, blue square, circle, star ...". Also good to throw in sequencing words first, next, and last.
• Counting and math - answering the question "how many ...", but they weren't just simple how many questions, but more like, "how many green stars and orange squares do you have ALL TOGETHER?"
• Quantifiers (some, rest of, all, etc) - "Give me ALL of the squares." OR "Pick up the rest of the stars."
• Body parts - "Touch the orange square to your forehead", "Put the red heart on your wrist." etc
• Adjective comparisons - tall, taller, tallest, short, shorter, shortest, long, longer, longest etc. by building towers and "trains".
• Prepositions - build a house or tower then instruct, "put the orange square in front/in back of the house/tower" (other words used, behind, next to, on top of, on the bottom, in the middle, underneath
• The NOT word - "Give me all the blocks that are NOT squares." At first, he'd hand me all the squares. By the end of our first play session, he would hold up a shape and say, "NOT a (square/circle etc) and would gleam with pride!

ALL FOR A BUCK.

Wednesday Workout - Helping with Housework

I know ... a day late. It's been one of those weeks!

Since I stay home, I have the "luxury" (ya, whatever) of doing housework every.single.day (not that working moms don't have this "luxury", my "luxury" is being able to do it throughout the day and not at 10pm at night like I did when I worked full time). Anyway, Aiden "helping" (I use this term very lightly) with housework has been one of the best language builders, even if it takes me three times as long to get anything done.

Laundry - Not only is laundry a good sorting activity, it has helped teach him articles of clothing, the difference between a wash machine and a dryer, colors ("put all the BLACK clothes in this pile"), possessives (daddy's shirt, Ryan's pants), verbs (washing, drying, pouring, taking out, putting into, folding, putting away), adjectives (wet, dry, dirty, clean, dark, light, big, small). His favorite parts are throwing the clothes in the wash machine and destroying the laundry basket full of clean folded clothes ... ya, this part's not so fun and is one way he learned the words "not nice" and "angry" too.

Aiden "helping" with the laundry.

Dishes - Aiden LOVES to help put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Again, not only has this has been an excellent way to teach him the names of all the dishes but also opposites such as small vs big, clean vs dirty, empty vs full. While I am making dinner, I can ask Aiden for a BIG spoon, and he knows exactly which one to give me. He also loves to help set the table, again teaching all the silverware names and short sentences (daddy gets a big fork, Ryan needs two napkins etc).

Cleaning his toy room - I have to admit, he's not much of a destroyer. He likes things in the right place and tidy. BUT, that doesn't mean he's never destroyed. At times he'll go in there and empty every single toy bin for no apparent reason what-so-ever except "just because". I've actually done it a couple times myself with him just as a learning opportunity. This is a GREAT way to teach SORTING into CATEGORIES - animals (and you can get even more specific with jungle vs zoo vs pets vs farm), vehicles, music, food, balls, building blocks, baby items, furniture, etc. An idea I learned from the John Tracy Clinic Distance Education Courses is to label the toy bins with a card showing pictures from that specific category.

It's been much worse.

Grocery Shopping - This truly is the best therapy ever. In fact, I always say our trips to Costco are well warranted, killing three birds with one stone by getting shopping done, a therapy session in, and the best part, LUNCH! Truly though, grocery shopping, as much as a hassle it is with a toddler, is a wonderful therapy session all in itself. This is how Aiden has learned the difference between fruits and veggies, what each fruit or veggie is (he can finally tell the difference between a tomato and an apple) plus much more ... put in, take out, cash register, money, receipt, push the cart, pay the clerk, STOP throwing it OUT of the cart, that's not nice, SIT DOWN, mom's getting angry, and on and on (okay, so great therapy session for toddler, but after all is said and done, mom deserves a day at the spa).

Then of course there are the little things like helping to empty bathroom trashcans (aka, mom picks up a trail of trash from bathroom to kitchen), dust, sweep (Aiden LOVES to sweep - inside the cat's litter box), feed the cats/dog (then pick up all the spilled food) ... all of which is filled with language opportunities AND the look on THEIR face (not yours) when they know they've "helped" accomplish a task is truly priceless all in itself.

Wednesday Workout - Aiden's Experience Book

The experience book introduced to us by our AVT is not quite the same as the ones I've read about or made in the past. It is not one book on one subject, but a big binder full of daily experiences and lessons we're working on. Aiden's AVT started this with us and we not only use it at home, but also in therapy. It is a wonderful tool to help facilitate conversational speech, story telling, and it is a great means to building a strong literacy foundation. (oh, and it can serve as a great scrapbook for mom too!)

The ultimate goal is to get Aiden used to, and excited about, bringing his "story book" to therapy to tell Dr. Don all about an experience from that week. Kids are typically more excited and more apt to talk about something they've experienced, know, and understand. Depending on how long we're in AVT, once Aiden gets to an age where he can draw his own pictures, he will, or tell me about an experience in his day that he wants to add to his book.

Creating one page a day can be overwhelming, so Dr. Don and I decided to make one personal experience page a week and one learning/theme page a week. Before I make the page, Aiden and I always talk about the topic first then make the page together.

Situations we currently incorporate into Aiden's book include:

Emotional Experiences

(Today he fell off his sister's bunk bed, so I need to make a page on that for this week. This is when I cut my thumb and Aiden was upset about it).

Special Days

(birthdays, holidays, grandma visiting, etc.)

Fun, Interesting Daily Type Events

(we make warm cookies a few times a week for bedtime snack)

Changes in Aiden's Life

(for example, I'm in the process of making a few pages about starting preschool. Here's one I made to help Aiden understand why Ryan and Kailyn left everyday when school started up)

Future Events

(for example, we're heading to the beach for Spring Break, so I'll make pages on packing luggage, riding in the car, pictures of the beach etc)

Social and Hygiene Skills

(for awhile, he was constantly eating his boogers - ewww!)

Themes/Specific Lessons

At Aiden's age, a lot of our pages are based on themes/learning experiences (colors, letters, bears, sequencing, holiday vocab., or whatever the "theme of the week" may be.

As you can see from our example pages, it doesn't have to be hard and time consuming.

Some things I do to create these pages with ease:

• Use clip art, printable from websites, and magazine pictures. I'm no artist, so if I don't have a picture readily available of Aiden performing the task we're talking about, I find it on the Internet or in a magazine then I ....
• Draw stick figures with a picture of one of our faces for the head. You can find great online photo print specials. I pick a few pictures of the family with good head shots then print tons of them so I can cut out our heads and use them throughout the book.
• Use cardstock for the pages, it's much sturdier. Oh, and I make sure the experience we're talking about is on facing pages (so I use the front and back of each sheet), like we're opening a book and don't have to flip the page as we talk about it.
• Use descriptive words, vocabulary you want them to learn, coloring book pages, and printables to help with themes
• Keep and use items that represent an experience and gives the story an even more personal meaning, i.e. movie ticket stub, postcard from a place visited, wrapping paper, a card received, picture from the package used (ex. picture from the brownie box), invitation, etc.

Items I Keep on Hand

(I keep all my supplies in two shoe boxes, so when we sit down to make a page, I have all my necessary supplies in one spot).

• stickers and/or specialty paper (this is an easy way to make a quick page to talk about holidays, animals, etc)
• ziplock baggies (to hold pieces for some pages - for example, we made a snowman on one page and I would have Aiden dress up the snowman with different color scarves, mittens, hats that I cut out for it, so I stored all the snowman's clothes in the baggie.)
• Crayons, markers, sharpies, glue, hole punch, stapler, tape, scissors
• Laminator (great investment)
• any misc. items collected to use one day -i.e. bubble wrap, magazine clippings, clearance holiday items to use for the next year)

There are a lot of great websites, but some I enjoy for themed units are:

• dltk-kids (a non-member site with tons of preschool activities, holiday crafts, and printables)
• Daycare Resource (a member site, but they do have some free printables)
• Making Friends.com (non-member site, many printables for paper dolls)
• Preschool Printables (non-member site with tons of fun games, ideas)
• Hubbard's Cupboard (non-member site with good lesson plans and printables for different preschool themed units)

Wednesday Workout - BEARS

Every couple of weeks I choose a core area as our main focus at home. Whether it be a specific theme, prepositions, following two step directions, a specific letter sound or whatever the "focus" may be, we center it around listening and language for that time. I'm going to do my best to share some of our activities every Wednesday, but we'll see as time schedules tell. I'd love for you to comment on any activity ideas you have to add for all to see!

The past couple weeks, we've been working on BEARS.

It started at Aiden's speech therapy a few weeks ago when wonderful Ms. Cheryl read Copy Me, Copy Cub. She used a brown paper bag for the cave, pictures of bears printed from the internet for mama and baby bear, cotton balls for the snow (which Aiden glued on the "cave"), then they tore up brown construction paper together for the leaves to put inside the cave. Very cute idea and Aiden loved acting it out as she read it to him.

That same week, Aiden's AVT read him Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Aiden had never heard the story before, and with all the repetitions, I figured it a good book to work on three-four word phrases.

From there I extended it to bears in general - brown bears, black bears, polar bears, panda bears, and of course, teddy bears (and made a page for his experience book on the different kind of bears). Since we were talking so much about bears, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to also hone in on the /b/ sound since Aiden has trouble with it (he has trouble with a lot of his stops in speech production).

There are a lot of Goldilocks and the Three Bears books out at the library, each with their own twist. Some seemed too difficult and busy for a two year old, so I picked the easiest one that stuck to the story line as I know it. Dr. D had this boardbook by Bryon Barton, which was just short enough to keep Aiden's attention.

As I read the story, we act it out with different toys Aiden has to represent each scene. This story is also great in identifying the concept of size (big vs small, big, bigger, biggest, etc), adjectives (soft, hard, hot, cold etc.) and most fun of all, using different kinds of voices. To emphasize the story and concepts in yet another way, I made stick puppets and scenes from pictures I found on the internet.

We've also been reading other bear books such as these,

and one of my all time favorites which can be found here.

I'm also teaching Aiden the infamous teddy bear rhyme (I remember singing this as a kid jump roping):

Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around,

Teddy bear, teddy bear touch the ground,

Teddy bear, teddy bear read the news,

Teddy bear, teddy bear tie your shoes,

Teddy bear, teddy bear go upstairs,

Teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers,

Teddy bear, teddy bear turn off the light,

Teddy bear, teddy bear say goodnight.

We each get a teddy bear and play together and I often find him singing parts of it as he plays with his teddy bears on his own.

Other songs I found we like:

Three Brown Bears (sing to Three Blind Mice)

Three brown bears, three brown bears,

See all their beds, see all their chairs,

The mommy cooked in a big brown pot,

The daddy's porridge was way too hot,

The baby bear cried a lot,

Three brown bears,

Three brown bears.

Hibernation Song (sing to Are You Sleeping) (and works on those "ing" verbs we've been practicing)

Are you eating, are you eating

little bear, little bear,

Eating nuts and berries,

For the long, hard winter

Little bear, little bear

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping

little bear, little bear

Sleeping through the winter

You are hibernating

little bear, little bear

Are you waking, are you waking

little bear, little bear

Now that it is Springtime

Sleeping time is over

Little bear, little bear.

A couple other things we've done:

• print out color sheets of the letter B, b and of different bears from the Internet
• play different songs/cartoons on You Tube to hear them in different voices
• give Aiden the props and let him tell me the story OR give him any of the books we've been reading and let him tell it to me (which of course is all over, but GREAT way to try and expand those sentences!)

Vocabulary taught: bear, cub, cave, snowing, scratching, waking, biggest vs big, smallest vs. small, hard, soft, just right, porridge, forest