New Sounds - May 12, 2015

I meant to write an entry earlier since so much has happened. Until summer, we are only getting to do Playroom Session on weekends and a few weekdays after school. However, we have also been using Son-Rise techniques in our house (outside playroom) and are seeing so many benefits already!!!! The "joining" has been so awesome because it is building our relationship with her and we are giving her more control & independence! She seeks us out now and wants to play with us instead of rocking. Her eye contact is increasing and we are encouraging her to say more sounds/words!

Before starting Son-Rise Program, Ashley could say 3 words ("buh bye", "bubbles", "wa wa" for water) BUT had to have verbal prompting. There have been a few words in past we think we heard but never heard again. When she first said "wa wa" for water at age 3 we were so excited. However, then she started using that sound for everything and it got very discouraging.  Again she can make almost every sound possible but to have her repeat a sound or word you make....she hasn't been able to do. When trying to have her say a word, she currently responds with "buh buh" or "wa wa" no matter what the word is or runs to PEC book.

After starting Son-Rise, we are seeing some progress! We are challenging her to make sounds for items she is motivated for and when we are getting green lights! We are using 3E's, celebration, and being goofy with her! We are learning how much we can push her to say the sound or word before she looses interest or gets frustrated. I am going to try and document all new sounds so I can look back on this one day and see how far she has come.

Tuesday, April 28 - she said "no" when she didn't want a food after I asked her.

Wednesday, April 29 - she said "ba" for bath!

Thursday, May 1 - she loves Veggie Tales theme song so I have been singing to her while she goes potty. I sit in front of her and get really great eye contact during this time! We always know she wants veggie tales when she "sings" intro trumpet sound "Uh uh Uh uh". So I was singing veggie tales song, paused halfway in song and said "your turn to sing". She was quiet for about 5 seconds and then she started singing the tune with jumbled words! Her speech therapist was here too and we both feel we heard clearly the word Veggie Tales.

Friday, May 2 - she said "ba" for bath, said "wa" for waffle(repeated for another waffle), then said "water" VERY clearly with T sound while I had my hand on bath faucet waiting for her to look at me before turning water on!!!! There was NO prompting for eye contact or for the word!!!

Monday, May 11 - we got her to say sound "bear" for berry (we shortened strawberry) since she was hungry and really wanted those strawberries. We got about 10 strawberry pieces in that time frame. and she said sound "buh buh" really great the first 9 times :)

 

Tuesday, May 12 - Today I got to have a Son-Rise session with Ashley after she got off the bus and I was able to get some "p" sounds out of her in playroom! She wanted to tear out pages from a new Tinkerbell coloring book and lay them out on floor. Before all of this my first instinct would be to say no since it is new but this is child-lead and wanted to use her motivation to build on. So she needed help tearing each page so I got good eye contact when asked if I could help her. I called each page "Picture" and tried to get her to say it. Again trying to learn the balance of challenging her to say, praising, and not getting her frustrated.
 

Wednesday, May 13 - I also was able to use the Son-Rise techniques with food tonight. I got her to try Peanuts, Chocolate Almond milk, and "Vitatops" muffin tops!!!! She liked them all. The Vitatops which looked like brownies will give her some vitamins and it has extra Iron. We are cutting out dairy right now to see if it helps her digestion since she has been constipated so much.