With both boys "graduating" from outside speech therapy (they will still have speech therapy thru the school), I thought it would be helpful for me to sum up where each of them are at with their speech skills.
This is written in my "mom terminology" and not official therapy words.
1. SPEECH SOUNDS
Both boys have mastered most of the speech sounds which is one of the reasons they have been discharged. There is still room for improvement because they have trouble sometimes pronouncing those sounds within a word. For instance, Ben can say the "d" sound, but then he pronounces dog as "gog".
2. ABILITY TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY OTHERS
This has improved greatly for both boys from where we were 2 years ago! At this point, Ben is probably more easily understood than Jonah. Ben's biggest drawback from being understood is sometimes Ben speaks too fast or mumbles which can make it hard to understand his words. I think what hinders Jonah from being understood at times is he has such big ideas that the words needed to express those ideas can be pretty complex. Both boys use their speech device, writing, or sign language to help be better understood.
3. RESPONSIVE SPEECH
When asked a question, Jonah does a good job of answering as long as he is paying attention. Keeping Jonah focused and engaged during a conversation is his biggest challenge. For Ben, answering a question can be very difficult because of his social anxiety and control issues. He likes to give a silly answer or not respond at all. What works best for both boys is to give them choices rather than just open-ended questions. For example, "Would you like juice or milk?" instead of "What would you like to drink?" I tend to limit to 2 choices, although it would be interesting to see how 3 or 4 choices would work.
4. COMMUNICATING NEEDS, WANTS, IDEAS
With our immediate family, most of the time, we can understand what they boys are asking for or trying to tell us. Between their speech, writing, sign language, and speech device, the code is usually cracked with relative ease. However, when we can't figure out what they are saying, the boys- especially Jonah- can get very frustrated and exasperated with us. Which I totally understand...
5. SOCIAL SKILLS
Jonah, unless upset/tired/sick, generally knows how to interact with others appropriately and quite politely.
As I have discussed many times before, Ben really struggles with interacting with others because of social anxiety and control issues. However, there have been a few instances in the past few weeks where he has really impressed me with some great social skills. So he can do it, just not on a consistent basis.
6. SPEECH DEVICE
At this point the speech device is used by both boys for the following reasons:
a. Clarify what they are saying if we can't understand them
b. Answer questions or give information that is too complex for their speech ability- for example in Sunday School, they can use the device to answer questions about the Bible story. Or for show-and-tell, they use the device to tell about something happened over the weekend for example. This is especially helpful for Ben when his social anxiety makes him uncomfortable using his words.
c. Help the boys with their writing- they can use it to generate ideas and for proper spelling of words.
7. NEED FOR AN INTERPRETER
In an ideal world, the speech device should be the interpreter for the boys. If someone can't understand them, they should be able to find the word on the device and let it speak for them. However, there are some limitations to the device being 100% successful:
a. Boys' ability to use device. Sometimes they can't find the word they want or they get sidetracked by other words on the device and lose their train of thought.
b. For people unfamiliar/uncomfortable with the device, it isn't very helpful to try and use it with them. The success of the device truly depends on the communication partner's willingness to "listen" to it.
For these reasons, I feel like someone in the boys' inner circle has to be around to help them be understood. This is what is probably most concerning to me because it's unrealistic to think we can always be there to interpret. Plus at some point, as the boys get older, I'm guessing they are not going to want someone at their side (especially mom) talking for them. How do you give them the independence they will want someday knowing there is the risk of them being misunderstood or not listened to if there's no one there to support them?
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All of this explains why the boys will continue to have speech therapy thru the school, and why we will continue to work diligently with them at home and also always be on the lookout for other resources to continue to move them forward in their speech. Yes, they have come a long way and we are VERY proud of them. But there is still more work to be done. They have a voice and they deserve to be heard!
One resource I have recently found is Outschool. Outschool offers online classes and one-on-one teaching in a variety of subjects. For Ben, he has just completed 4 weeks of a one-on-one social skills class which has been amazing! At the end of the month, he will join a group class on social skills. The teacher for both of these classes gears his material for kiddos with autism. I feel comfortable with Ben being online for class because I am right there observing and assisting Ben when needed. In December I am going to try Outschool's one-on-one voice lessons for Jonah since his voice teacher from the past 2 years had to move out-of-state. We started voice lessons with Jonah because we thought it would be a fun way to get him to work on his pronunciation/speech skills while doing something he loves- singing! It has been a great experience. We really think the voice lessons have contributed to his big jump in being verbal over the past 2 years!
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