Using Her Words

Amelia started speech therapy last month. She goes two times a week. She had been on a waiting list since January. She has two different therapists because they did not have one person with two spots open. In her evaluation she said a new word: Coffee.

During her first real session with the speech therapist, the therapist used the PROMPT method. This is used with kids that have neuro and muscular issues that affect speech -- which is probably Amelia's problem. I have copied this from a website: The PROMPT System stands for "Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets". It is a dynamic tactile method of treatment for motor speech disorders which is based on touch pressure, kinesthetic and proprioceptive cues.

Anyway she tried to get her to say the word POP during the session and she clammed up and wouldn't say anything, but the therapist used the backs of her fingers on Amelia's lips to kind of press them together while saying the word POP. She did this several times during the session and Amelia would giggle whenever the therapist would say pop. After that we left, went to dinner, and then came home. As Todd was putting her to bed, guess what she said? POP. Very crisply. And she kept saying it about ten times. Now she says it all the time.

The following week in therapy the therapist tried to get her to say "Yuk!" and she did. She enjoys saying this one a lot and thinks it is funny. I say it to her all the time and wrinkle my nose to let her know not to touch things -- like the trash can which she totally loves to play in. A couple days ago we were watching a TV show with some animals going down a slide and splashing into a pond. One of them was a duck. I said "duck" and she repeated me.

Some other words she says with regularity:
bubble
bye-bye
go
book
dada
whale

She is starting to repeat words if you ask her to. Before she could or would not do it no matter how much you cajoled or begged. I really think this PROMPT method works for her.