Friday, September 24, 2010

speech goals.

A few weeks ago, Max's Speech Therapist did a formal assessment of his language skills to update Max's speech goals.  We've noticed a big increase in his ability to use language functionally to request what he wants (and tell us what he DOESN'T want too).  What she was interested in was his social language skills, which is an entirely different skill set.  After her assessment, she sent home a list of goals for us all to work on so that we would be on the same page as her:
  1. Max will understand and express the appropriate preposition (in, on, under, off and out) with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  2. Max will consistently label pictures with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  3. Max will receptively identify pictures from an array of 3-6 with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  4. Max will be exposed to a variety of theme based activities (variety of resources) to build on his vocabulary (ex. Colours, shapes household items, clothing, etc.).
  5. Max will be able to identify body parts on himself, others and dolls/stuffed animals with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  6. Max will be able to identify receptively and express genders (boy/girl) with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  7. Max will identify (receptively) familiar verbs in a variety of resources with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  8. Max will demonstrate an understanding of basic concepts such as "big" and "little" with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  9. Max will be able to follow directions receptively when the speaker uses a variety of language such as "Show me", "Give me", "Pass me", etc. with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
  10. Max will be able to answer "what" and "where" questions with 80% accuracy given minimal prompting.
When I go back and look at pictures of Max in his first speech therapy sessions, where he had no words, was unable to enter the therapy room without having a major meltdown, could not sit for any length of time, and screamed for the majority of the session, it reminds me that while his progress may be slow, he is most definitely progressing.  If you had told me back then that in less than 2 years Max would be working on prepositions, verbs and adjectives I would have laughed and said "yeah right".  But here we are.  The work is hard but it is fruitful.  I'm so proud of my son.  He works incredibly hard every single day and he does it with a smile.  At 4 years old he has more figured out than a lot of us do.

4 comments:

  1. Caroline10:45 a.m.

    Awesome, Katrina! You are an amazing Mum, with an amazing son (AND an amazing team of helpers, both in and out the family) It is incredibly exciting to see this kind of progress for your wee guy, and what it must mean to your whole family. Just awesome! And particularly great that Lorraine gets to see this much progress, despite that she may not see the end result. 'Cuz I know she's worked hard right alongside you guys on this project. She's done a good work, a really important, big one. Kudos to all of you, especially Max.

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  2. Way to go Max!! One of the many wonderful things about your blog is the documentation of Max's journey. If you are every feeling down about progress or a plateau, you can look back at 6 months ago, or a year ago and be reminded again at just how awesome he is doing!

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  3. Oh goodness, he is so cute.

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  4. Anonymous8:06 a.m.

    If you ever want to try using an at home speech tool, give Speechtails.com a try. I have been a daycare provider and a mom of a child with sensory and speech issues for 16 years. I have seen a ton of different speech problems and have found Speechtails on line to help a ton!!!!! you are a good mom!!! Good Luck.

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