Praise of Speech Therapists

A few weeks back, Fred and I attended a teacher's conference for Mowgli. We requested that his therapists be present at this meeting. It surprised me to learn that this request was considered special. At Mowgli's preschool program, we had always met with his entire team. Which included his teacher, 3 therapists, and behavior specialist. Sometimes we also had meetings where the family support specialist, classroom aides, and school psychologist, were present. That's a lot of people working hard, to make sure my child succeeds!
The conference meeting was the first time we met with Mowgli's new school therapists. Mowgli has a speech therapist, occupational therapist (who works on his fine motor skills and sensory issues), and physical therapist, who works on some minor large motor skill issues, but mostly helps with teaching social skills, and providing sensory input through physical activities. Each one of these ladies plays a significant role in Mowgli's developmental education and progress.
During the meeting, the therapists updated us on Mowgli's progress, which was more positive compared with the sterile (and depressing) report card he had received. We asked that they send us email updates weekly, so that we could be aware of any progress or issues that may come up. They were more than willing to help us in any way they could.
Now I'm going to share with you this week's speech therapy progress report. I truly believe that in addition to Mowgli's family, his speech therapist (past, present, and future) is the most important person in Mowgli's life.

Fred and Amy,

Mowgli has done well in speech therapy these past two weeks. He is
consistently recognizing the concept of "under" in the pictures that I
have been using. I have started using some new pictures to see if he
can generalize the concepts to unfamiliar pictures and he has done well
so far with this. I am happy with his progress with this.

I have been able to completely fade the paper prompt I was using for him
to produce 3 word sentences using present progressive verbs. He does
point his finger in on the table three times though if the paper was
there, but he doesn't need it directly in front of him.

Mowgli continues to do well identifying objects by function and is just
beginning to say the name of the item i am describing rather that
pointing to the correct picture and repeating my description (i.e.
saying a pencil rather than point to the picture and saying write with
it).

I have begun working on simple "what" questions with Mowgli using
picture cards and some worksheets. He is doing well with this so far
and seems to enjoy the worksheet activities. I have also continued to
work on him stating "I need scissors" etc... when using these materials
- He does continue to need prompting with this, but we will continue to
work on it. He has been able to attend for the completion of the entire
worksheet this week.

I have a toy dog in my room that barks, runs, and does a flip. He has
been turning this toy on more recently and when he plays with it I have
been saying "Jump dog" and now Mowgli has been turning the dog on and
saying this too independently and without me initiating it - very cute!


When Mowgli is playing with a preferred toy or on the computer, I have
also been working on a little turn taking and using the phrase "my turn"
- He does not always like this but is allowing me to use the computer
mouse/toy for a short period of time. I say "my turn" and take the mouse
and click on something on the website he is on and then prompt him to
say "my turn" to get the mouse back - He at times does say "my turn"
without my prompting.

Mowgli is doing better at identifying his classmates as well - He is
able to identify 7-8 with a phonemic prompt (I give him the first sound
of a peers name and he is able to then state the peers name himself.
This is a nice improvement as well.

Hope you have a great weekend and I will see you tomorrow at his
meeting!


Seriously, this woman busts her butt, every day for my child! She is helping him learn to communicate with the rest of the world. I couldn't be happier with her, or with the progress my little man is making. This is what I call a Merry Christmas!