Teaching “My” and “Your”

Even as Hubby-jr speech development is progressing well, he still lags behind his peers. One key problem area is in using “I”, “You”, “My”, “Your”. He frequently mixes them up or just refers to himself by name.

To address this, his speech therapist introduced these two activities. The second is a progression of the first.

First Speech Activity

She played a simple game in which she and Hubby-jr had to take turns. After playing for a while and Hubby-jr understood the rules of the game, she stopped and asked, “Whose turn is it now?” His natural reply was “his name” (if it was his turn) or “teacher” (if it was the speech therapist’s turn). She’d then intervene and teach him to say, “It’s Hubby-jr, MY turn” or “It’s teacher’s, YOUR turn”. She’d ask the question, “Whose turn is it now?” at every “turn” requiring my son to reply correctly each time before the game could proceed.

After he got the hang of this, he was taught to drop the name and just say, “It’s MY turn” or “It’s YOUR turn”. But she was the one always asking the question and all answers came from Hubby-jr. Back home I did this exercise with him too but with different games.

Second Speech Activity

As a progression, she played this very simple game with Hubby-jr. Sitting face to face, it’d start with her giving specific commands to which my son had to respond. “Touch my nose” (he’d have to touch the therapist’s nose), “Touch your nose”, “Touch my shoulder”, “Touch your lips” and so on (you get the idea). If he made a mistake, she’d repeat the command and guide his hand to the correct place.

After he got the hang of this, he’d get his turn to give the commands and the speech therapist would respond. The game then became one where both of them would alternate in giving the commands and always required the use of “my” and “your“.

This is quite a fun game which my son enjoys. I’ve played it a few times with him at home too.

Since the above exercises he is using “my” and “your” more although he still mixes them up at times and he still prefers to use names rather than pronouns.

Through the process of teaching him ”my” and “your”, I discovered that unknowingly I’ve acquired the habit of using “mommy” instead of “I” or “my” when talking to him. Slowly I’m undoing this and when I consciously change my sentences to use pronouns I can see that he too makes an effort to respond using pronouns!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Since Hubby-jr started speech therapy one of the things I’ve to do with him at home is “shadow reading”. Basically he has to repeat after me word for word and imitate the tone and rhythm as I read a storybook to him. This is to improve his articulation. According to the speech therapist he’s too nasal and speaks without really pausing between each word. His sentence could sound like one long word with many, many syllables!

Shadow reading was a tough assignment. I had to correct his pronunciation and rhythm more often than he liked. It made storytime grueling. I got quite disheartened. Thankfully I wised up and tried using his favourite nursery rhymes. It worked a lot better as they were much shorter.

Then recently I discovered a couple of wonderful short videos of storybooks on YouTube and that helped tremendously. You see Hubby-jr loves almost anything that moves on the computer! (I seriously think it’s the male genes, my daughter takes to computers too but at a much lesser degree.) And these videos were perfect because they were basically close up shots of the books (of which I had borrowed or bought), moving page by page as someone narrated the story.

After he watched the videos he was hooked. He watched it again, again and again memorizing not only the words but the tone and rhythm of the narration as well. So much so he could read the book (the real book with the computer off) to me and all I had to do was correct some of his pronunciation!

Here are the videos. The first is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The children’s classic by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle. He loved this one so much that he’d recite the story to himself every now and then!

(The YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHCYgO9zh8)

The second is Digger Man by Andrea Zimmerman & David Clemesha.

(The YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OOz_dz0vf4)

I have noticed that Hubby-jr has since started speaking slower and clearer. It works!

Another wonderful site

At Hubby-jr’s last hearing test I found a brochure on this wonderful website I’m about to introduce to you.

It’s called the Listening Room at www.HearingJourney.com. It’s Fabulous! In their own words, it’s a web resource full of (re)habilitation activities and ideas to support the development of listening and language skills in children, adolescents and adults.

So far they’ve only stuff for kids but they’re working on activities for infants, toddlers and adults too.They’ve great game ideas for speech therapy that comes with DIY downloadable pdf files complete with instructions. They even have online video instructions. What’s fantastic is that they feature weekly activities. Yes! They introduce a new activity each week! And guess what? The resources are absolutely free!! Isn’t that just Fantabulous?!

Alrighty mommyfied, now get your act together and get them printed and do them! (Me pysching my “reluctant to add on more to my daily to-do list of things” self.)

WFMW - Indoor Fun with Beans

The weather has been rather unpredictable of late, sudden showers has taken on an added dimension. They’re no longer just sudden, they’re erratic too! Sunny one second, pouring the next, sunny again and who knows? It may pour again! The eccentric weather plus living in an apartment with two young and active kids made me desperate for ideas to keep them entertained indoors.

Thankfully I remembered reading about this wonderful indoor activity at Pilgrim Parent sometime ago. I couldn’t try it out then as Little Missy was too young to handle beans (but not young enough to just lie down and stare at mobiles!). But now at 19 months…

Anyway, here’s what I did. I lined the floor with a quilt cover (any flat sheet will do. The bigger the better!) I opened a bag of raw soya beans I had and poured them into a plastic container and put it in the middle of the quilt cover. I added some toy plastic kitchenware like cups, spoons, plates, funnel and also beach stuff like buckets and spades. Then I revealed the set up to the kids! It wasn’t much beans but it was enough to keep my kids occupied for quite a while (I’m sure it’d be more fun if I add some more) and on more than one occasion! It’s a great substitute for sand or waterplay. When they were done, I removed all the plasticware, lift the quilt cover from the corners and gathered all the beans and poured them back into a container. I can always reuse them either for more beans play or to cook!

Besides just occupying their time, I also realised it’s a great platform for refining their motor skills (more for 19month old Little Missy) and for them to learn. I could use it to teach concepts such “empty”, “full” and “half full”, “shallow” and “deep”. It can also be used to reinforce “in”, “on” and “under”. Simply great as a speech therapy activity for Hubby-jr! (And at the sametime Little Missy learns too!)

I never would have thought a bag of cheap beans could be so useful! Thanks Pilgrim Parent for sharing the idea. It works marvellously for me. For more stuff that works go here.

More Speech Development Links

I had a little trouble falling asleep two nights ago. This time it was not due to the usual suspect… anxiety. This time it was because I was excited! I was surfing the net just before bed and like a kid stumbling into a free flow candy store, I discovered some wonderful speech development websites! Check them out.

General Speech Development Stuff 

• First stop, Speech Delay.com - I like this site because it’s comprehensive and very easy to understand. There’s a page on the degree of hearing loss which gave me a clearer picture of Hubby-jr’s situation (the chart helped a lot). If you’re interested to know, Hubby-jr has about 40-50dB HL only in the low frequencies and only in his right ear.
• Speech-Pathology.org - Okay the only reason I’m listing this site here is because I like their one particular page which charts normal speech sound development in kids. It’s a useful gauge.
• Speech Language Pathology Websites - A very comprehensive list of sites. This is where I found (in the Children category) the other sites l’ve mentioned here but if you need other related information, this is a good place to start.

Websites with Ideas/Activites to Encourage Speech Development

• Speech Therapy Activities (Speechtx.com) - I LOVE this site. It’s just filled with free ideas.
• Communication Connects (Parents Page) - They have a list of home activity ideas.

That’s it for now. I hope you find them useful.

By the way I struggled through the next day due to my lack of sleep. Hmm… I think I better stop surfing the internet too near bedtime lest I stumble on something that’s gonna overstimulate my mind!

“Yes honey, I’m coming to bed soon… as soon as I’m done at the computer…”

Backward WFMW - Speech Therapy@Home

Since I’ve a speech delayed four year old I’ve been doing some DIY speech therapy at home. So far I’ve worked on some ideas given to me by a speech therapist and my own thought up ones and I’m sharing some of these ideas here today.

In, On, Under

Introduce the concepts of “in”, “on” and “under” using a huge box. Put your kid into the box and say, “You are in the box”. Flip it over and let him sit on top of the box for “on” and cover him with the box for “under”. After you’ve introduced the concepts, ask your kid to go “in” the box and see if he knows how to climb in. Besides giving him the task as you direct, also ask him questions. For example, place him under the box and ask him where he is. Intersperse between giving him directions and asking him where he is.

I was also told a good focus was to teach the basic What, Who, Where, Why and How questions. Knowing these would empower a child tremendously in communicating.

What, Who, Whose

First start with “What” as it is the easiest to grasp. Ask your child “what” questions at every opportunity. Storybooks are a good way to introduce the difference between “what” and “who”. Point to a person and ask, “Who is this?” and then point to the shoes or shirt and ask “What is this?” 

A game I innovated on the spot while playing with my kids was the telescope game. Looking through a long cardboard tube (hey, it’s a telescope!) I wave it around and stop to focus on my son and ask, “Who is this?” Then I move on to things for “what” questions. I also introduced “whose” (ambitious huh?) by focusing on his lips, ears, etc. Actually he found it very fun to stick his mouth at the other end of the tube and that’s when I started asking, “What is this?” and followed by “Whose mouth is this?” You’ll have to provide the correct answers in the beginning if your child hasn’t grasp the concept yet. After a while they will, then you can prompt them to reply.

But folks I’m running out of ideas and have not had any luck locating specific ideas over the internet. So for this week’s backward WFMW I would like to know of any interesting simple play ideas for DIY speech therapy at home. Any activities you know that can help stimulate speech for a four year old would be helpful.

Useful websites I found so far:

I Can – Talking Point (A UK based First Stop for Information About Communication Development and Disability)

Starfall.com (Great website that teaches children how to read. It has helped Hubby-jr pick up phonics and reading words.)

Resources I found reviewed on the internet but am having problems finding in Singapore:
Teach Me How To Say It Right by Dorothy P. Dougherty
Baby Babble - Speech Enhancing DVD for Babies and Toddlers 

(If you’ve read or seen any of these let me know what you think of them. I’d like to know before ordering them on Amazon.com)

Thanks in advance to those of you who’ll be sharing your ideas with me. Don’t forget to check out the burning questions of other moms and see if you can provide them with some insights over at this week’s Backward WFMW at Rocks In My Dryer.