Sometimes I find it takes a long time to explain Joey’s successes because there is so much background needed to set the stage for each story. Sometimes it involves explaining where words are on his AAC device, or how he uses his AAC device and words to communicate, or even what an AAC device is. These stories get complicated. That being said, read on because I think you’ll be as proud of Joey as I am. [Read more…]
Teaching Rhyming Part Two
Last week we talked about the importance of exposing Joey to the phonemic awareness activities such as rhyming games to help prepare him for skills later in life. Here are some of the rhyming games and activities we are working on so far. [Read more…]
Teaching Joey Phonemic Awareness
“I want to eat the mueberries!” I made the puppet say, “What rhymes with mueberries?” Joey scanned his hand over the two pictures of fruit on his tray – bananas and blueberries. Then, instead of handing me the picture like I expected he went into his words and said blueberries. “Exactly! Mueberries/Blueberries rhymes!” I celebrated, and then made my puppet pretend to eat up the mueberries while Joey looked on confused. I don’t think he appreciated my game although he was fine answering my rhyming questions. [Read more…]
Funny and Silly
“How many dogs are there now?” I read aloud to Joey, as we worked our way through one of our current favorite books, Groovy Joe by Eric Litwin. (There were 8 dogs on the page.) “9… Funny” Joey replied on his AAC eye gaze device and then turned to show me his huge grin. I had to pause for a moment because I did not even realize that the word funny had been added to Joey’s AAC device. He took the opportunity of my pause to add “silly” just in case I hadn’t understood his meaning behind funny. Yes, 9 is silly because there are 8 dogs, not 9, and he KNOWS he’s clicking on the wrong answer. Maybe he’s tired of me asking him to count dogs on the page, or maybe he’s not exactly sure where number 8 is, but he knows it’s not 9 and he’s making a joke out of it. [Read more…]
Getting Moving!
When Joey turned four I reviewed the developmental stages of typical four-year-olds, and was reminded of how much this age group loves physical activity. Gross motor movement is not always easy to incorporate into my work with Joey because we spend so much time with him in his chair reading books and using his AAC device. I made a mental note to remind myself to plan activities that could be done down on the floor with Joey so that I could meet his four-year-old need for physical activity, while also working on some of our other goals. [Read more…]
