Jun

25

Second Week of Clinic

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Well, two weeks down, four more to go. I’m not really counting. I’m enjoying therapy.

This week I felt more comfortable, but my poor client didn’t. On Monday I went to get him from the waiting area. He was having a good time playing with his siblings. But as soon as he heard my voice and his mom said it was time for him to go, he started crying. He sobbed all the way up to our room and then the first few minutes of therapy. On Wednesday he cried again. He didn’t cry as loud this time, but he cried a little longer. Both days he eventually calmed down.

On Monday we played Memory. I was trying to decide if I would let him win, but in the end it didn’t matter. He probably would have won even if I was trying my best. Nothing like having a four-year-old put you to shame.

Let me try to explain a little bit of what I do the first hour of therapy. My client substitutes “d” for the first sound of almost all his words. So, “book,” “shelf,” and “rat” would sound like “dook,” delf,” and “dat.” Well, not quite. He also drops most of his final sounds so those words would actually sound like “doo,” “de,” and “da.” You get the picture on how confusing it could be to understand him?

One of my goals for this summer is to get my client to correctly use “m,” “g,” and “j” instead of using “d.” These were just a few of the many choices of sounds I could have picked. I’m using a Multiple Oppositions approach. I have five sets of picture cards that all rhyme. For example, one set is “dough,” “mow,” “go,” and “Joe.” Since I don’t want him to use “d,” I use that sound to contrast each sound. So I hold up the “d” card and another card and say what is on them. “Dough. Mow.” And then I have my client say them. Usually it comes out as “Dough. Dow.” I remind him of what sound it should start with and then usually he says, “Dough. Mdow.” Then I put the “m” card down and pick up another. “Dough. Go.” We go through the whole set of cards this way and then do the next set.

After this we take a break to “play.” This is where my creativity is supposed to come into play. We call this a “naturalistic activity.” I pick one sound to focus on and then come up with 10-15 words that start with that sound. As we do the activity my client has to say the words. This last week I had two naturalistic activities. The first one was matching farm things that went together (eggs go with the chicken). On each piece of paper was a word he had to say. For the second one we went grocery shopping in the therapy room. He had a little cart and I had a grocery list. He had to find the item on the grocery list and say the word on the item (that I had previously taped) before putting it into the cart. The point with these activities is to bombard him with lots of words using that sound and to hopefully get him to say it correctly. Sometimes it works better than others.

After our naturalistic activity we go back to our sets of cards, but this time we work on the final sounds. Because he drops most of the final sounds I am trying to get him to correctly use “k,” “z,” and “f.” After we’ve gone through each set twice then we have another naturalistic activity. By this point (hopefully) our first hour is up. The boy next door comes over for an hour of group therapy. I’ll write about this next time.

Jun

18

Saturday Fun

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Two Saturdays ago we went to a celebration at Claytor Lake State Park. When we first got there, there was an antique car show. I was quite impressed with the number of classic cars in the area. The festival also included an antique firetruck show. The oldest fire truck was a chief’s car from the 1930s.

We got to the show around 3, and we wanted to stay for the fireworks later in the evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t know when they would start. We ended up sitting around on the grass near a gazebo until quite late in the evening. As the day progressed, however, we realized that we might have some great seat for the fireworks. We did. At 6pm when we got there, only a dozen or so other people were there. By 9:15, there were hundreds of people scattered about on our little spit of land. And we were right on the end with an unobstructed view.

Last Saturday, we went to a celebration at Ingles Farm, a working farm built at the original location of a farm from the 1740s. Mary Draper Ingles, wife of the original owner, is famous for having been captured by the Shawnee Indians during the French and Indian War, then escaping from her captivity south of Cincinnati, and walking all the way back to the New River Valley. The celebration today included several people to explain the local history, including the current owner of the farm, a descendant of the Ingles of the 1700s. There were also quite a few people around in period dress, demonstrating various farm implements and military weapons of the 18th century.

The Ingles family also operated a ferry from the farm. The Wilderness Road (of Daniel Boone fame) went right past the farm and crossed the New River at one corner of the Ingles’ land. The original owner, William, got permission to operate a ferry. It was in continuous operation until 1948, except for a brief period before the Civil War when a bridge replaced it.

1920s Ford
1950s Corvette
Ford Galaxy

A 1930s Ford Fire Chief Car
A butterfly on Mel's toe
A pirate sailboat?

Fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks

Fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks

Fireworks
Mel and the goat
Spinning Yarn

18th century doctor's tools
Me and the sycamore tree
The Wilderness Road


Jun

17

My first week of clinic

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This past week was my first week of clinic. I’m one of six graduate students in the phonological disorders group. A person with a phonological disorder (usually a young child) has created his own rule system for how to say words. For example, my client uses the “d” sound for all words that start with a consonant, deletes the last consonant, and whenever a word is two or three syllables, uses the voiced or voiceless “th” sound for each consonant. My job is to re-teach the rule system so that he talks correctly and can be understood.

The six of us were divided into pairs. The Lord blessed me with a wonderful partner named Jen. My disadvantage (or advantage depending on how you look at it) is that this is my first semester in clinic and everyone else’s third. Jen is very creative and has lots of great ideas. She also is well-prepared. She has been so great to teach me how to do everything. I feel spoiled at times because none of my classmates had knowledgeable people working so closely with them when they began clinic.

I’m in clinic for two hours twice a week. For the first hour I work with my client on his sounds. During the second hour Jen and her client join me and together we work on literacy awareness by reading books, learning letters, looking for letters in words, etc. Jen and I take turns being in charge of the group activity.

I can’t say a whole lot about my client, but he’s almost four and is very obedient. Oh yeah, he hardly talks. In the four hours we were together I think he said four utterances on his own. Whenever I ask him to say the words we are talking about he says them. If I ask him to go somewhere in the room for an activity he obeys immediately. I think the poor kid is just terrified. How would you feel if your mom left you with a stranger in a strange place in a strange room where the person said, “Say ‘dough, mow’” and other things like that.

Our group session is interesting. Jen’s client is about the same age. He talks a little bit more, but he’s quite different from my client. He attends a Montessori school, and his mother seems to have taken the “learning” environment a little too far. If he doesn’t want to do something (no matter what) he doesn’t have to. He shouldn’t be rewarded because doing something correctly should be reward enough. When the two clients are together not much happens. They don’t talk to each other. They don’t want to sit very close to each other. At the end of the session Jen says, “Say goodbye to [my client].” He shakes his head and says no while mine shyly waves goodbye. Hopefully as time goes on my client will warm up to me and both clients will get along better.

The other groups have 4 clients at a time ranging from 4-7 years old. Apparently after the first five minutes they were talking to each other like they were best friends that had known each other all their lives. Also, the clinicians said that the 4 can understand each other perfectly even though they all make different mistakes. Apparently the clinicians’ have no clue what the kids are saying and the kids are trying to help explain each other.

So, two sessions down, ten more to go for the summer. I’m enjoying it so far. Hopefully it will continue to go well.

Jun

4

Memorial Day picnic

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Both Mel and I had Memorial Day off, so we decided to have a picnic somewhere in the Jefferson National Forest. The forest is actually huge, stretching from Tennessee to somewhere north of Roanoke. But there are several nice places within an hour or so of our apartment.

We first went to Pandapas Pond, a day use area just north of Blacksburg. It appears to be a prime fishing location. It’s a man-made lake that has a beaver dam and lodge on one end and a fairly deep pool at the other. The Forest Service stocks the pond with various types of fish, and there are plenty of nice places along the shore to try to catch them. The area is also a starting point for several trails through that section of the forest.

Unfortunately, there was only one grill at Pandapas Pond, and it was occupied. So we drove up to the Cascades, about which we have written before. The parking lot was packed, but it appeared that most of the people there were actually up the trail at the waterfall, presumably to swim in the 40-something-degree water. We easily found a nice picnic table with a grill. After reading next to the stream for a while, we made our dinner and enjoyed it just as the clouds started to gather. It didn’t really rain us out, but there were a few drops as we were leaving.

It was nice for both of us to have the day off and to be able to relax (and eat good food).

Supper
A fish at Pandapas Pond
The beaver lodge

The beaver dam and wetland
A flowering tree
Goslings

Obviously used to people...and geese
Our picnic equipment