Promoting Speech with Recorder

It was a beautiful sunny day, pretty warm for November in Massachusetts and sunny enough so that I needed my sun glasses. This 2 year old independently opened and closed the zipper to take my glasses out and put back in the case.

The most fun thing I did today was have a 3 year old (who has down syndrome) repeat what she did into the tape recorder which I played back for her mom later. She mostly repeated one word at a time but did string the phrase "I did it".  Her mom heard a recording of her saying  " five sit ups" and "I went up hill" and "I was kneeling". I am going to do this regularly. These phrases will become more familiar and with practice hopefully she will repeat an entire phrase rather than one word at a time.

Thanksgiving Week Hippotherapy

I am always looking for ways to promote bearing weight on hands . This little girl avoids this and often curls up her fingers to avoid touch to her palms. But she tolerated when I pushed her hands down on the sqeaky toys I sewed inside a felt bag.

It was great to hear this litle girl vocalize. I know that this doesn't exactly look like a turkey but I think it passed the sensory fun test. She used both hands together nicely and pulling the clips strengthens hands.  Quite a few kids liked using this "remove the turkey feathers toy" this week.....vibration and shiny lights usually work well...... 

Pig Picture

 

This little girl loved attaching the baby animal pictures to the back of the  large mommy animal pictures. In the process she got to work on postural control as she reached for the smaller picture on the croup and the bigger one that I held up on the mane (requiring her to post).