Speech Therapy Week 2

Annabelle was not quite herself for speech therapy this morning because she was still recovering from a busy and fun filled weekend with Nonnie. She was even in bed by 8:00 p.m., but the 12 hours of sleep still didn't seem to help. But, she still cooperated very well. She was just a little less talkative.

Miss Andrea focused on the "SH" sound today. Her focus was mainly on the "initial SH words" meaning that the "SH" is at the beginning of the word.

Miss Andrea and Annabelle started speech therapy by playing the "Dora the Explorer ABC Game." There were cards dealt out face up on the table with all of the upper case letters listed on each one. Annabelle was to start with the letter A and find the corresponding card. Then, she was to tell Miss Andrea what was pictured on the card. She moved from A to B to C and so on through the entire alphabet. For some of the letters, here are some of the things I noted or some of the things she said after she saw the picture on the card.

S - Strawberry - I noted that she has trouble saying "straw" in the word strawberry. I have noticed this, and we have a hard time understanding her when she asks for a straw. I cannot remember what we typically think she says as I just asked her to say straw, and she said it correctly!

K - "Uncle Ken's name."

K - Kite - "What happens to it when em eating dare food?" Miss Andrea had told Annabelle that Dora was having a picnic, and these were some of the things that Dora needed on her picnic.

O - Oranges - This is another word that Annabelle has trouble saying.

P - Pineapple - "Pineapple, my favorite!" Oddly enough, pineapple is not Annabelle's favorite fruit. She has just recently starting liking it, but sometimes she can take it or leave it. Watermelon is definitely still one of her favorites.

After the Dora the Explorer game, Miss Andrea asked Annabelle, "I forget. I know you told me, but is she smaller than you?" Annabelle had just said something about Sophia. "Bigger," Annabelle replied. Really? She's bigger? I'm not sure where that comment came from, but it was quite funny.

Next on the agenda was a matching (memory) game on the computer. As Annabelle found the matches of the words with the initial SH sound, she was to repeat the word to Miss Andrea. Following are the words pictured on the game.

shamrock, sheep, shower, shoes, shelf, shovel, chef, shake, shot, she

When asked to say "she," Annabelle responded, "I can only say girl. I cannot say she."

Randomly, Annabelle piped in and said, "One time I bideoed [videoed] someding Ganmama said, and she said stop bideoing [videoing] me." She was referring to last week when she learned to use her new digital camera to video.

After the memory game, Andrea drew the letters S and SH on a piece of paper. She asked Annabelle to draw a dot on the paper next to either the S or the SH depending on the sound she heard in the word stated. Annabelle followed Andrea's directions very well, and I think she completed the exercise accurately.

Connect Four was the next game on the agenda. Andrea asked if Annabelle had ever played Connect Four before. Annabelle told her that she has not and that is when I realized I really need to buy Annabelle some more advanced games. Candyland and Hi Ho Cheerio just don't cut it with this girl! They have always been boring to her. Hi Ho Cheerio holds her interest a whole lot better than Candyland does though.

During the Connect Four game, Andrea held up cards from the Webster-Articulation game. All of the pictures on the cards included the "SH" sound. Annabelle had to say the word with the "SH" sound before she dropped a token into the Connect Four game.

While playing, Annabelle blocked Andrea immediately and apparently grinned. Miss Andrea said, "You have played this before!" because she thought that Annabelle had blocked her on purpose. I think she realized later that it was simply just a coincidence.

Following are the words Annabelle had to say based on the pictures on the Webster-Articulation cards: eyelashes, parachute, leash, squash, radish, pin cushion, paintbrush, dishes

fish = "fis" came out

yellow fishing poles = "jello" fishing poles came out

toothbrush = "toothbrus" came out


For homework this week, Miss Andrea wants Annabelle to focus on her:

(a) initial SH words (i.e. shoe, shapes, sheep, ship, shirt)

(b) final SH words (i.e. brush, cash, dish, fish, leash, push, splash)

(c) initial Y words (i.e. youngest, yo-yo, yummy, yogurt, yellow jacket)


After the therapy was complete, Miss Andrea asked if I had any questions. I asked if Miss Andrea felt comfortable with Annabelle's use of the medial N words. She felt like she was doing fine with those. I also voiced my concern that Annabelle typically gets irritated with me asking her to repeat the words over and over for homework. She'll often tell me, "I don't want to. I am tired of saying dat." Miss Andrea said that Annabelle was very smart, and she was probably just getting bored with the exercises. Miss Andrea suggested giving her stickers on a sticker board with a bigger sticker if she completes all of the homework I have planned. She doesn't know Annabelle, does she? Annabelle requires a "prize" from the Dollar Store for her bigger prize, and after awhile, even the stickers don't motivate her.

I mentioned to Miss Andrea that I was considering purchasing one of the games off of the http://www.superduper.com/ website she recommended where Annabelle has to string together several different words with the same sounds in the game. She said that they didn't have a game like that, and it sounded like a great game for Annabelle since it seems that Annabelle has more articulation issues when she is stringing her words together to form a sentence. She also mentioned that it is fairly common that children aged 2.5 - 3 years will string together very long sentences because they are so smart and have a lot they want to say, but it is hard to understand them because they haven't quite mastered the sounds for certain words yet. She gave me the impression that this is common with very smart children who are able to string together many words to form a sentence. Maybe I was reading into it because we all want our child to be smart, but I got the impression from Miss Andrea that speech therapy was common for these types of children. That goes against the typical stereotype and belief that children in need of speech therapy are not smart. No one can say that I didn't talk to Annabelle as a young child! How else would she be able to string together these very long sentences? Even her doctor at her three year old wellness checkup mentioned that was a four year old milestone.