Be prepared to hear a lot in the next few days about Sophie’s 5th birthday (which is Wednesday, November 16th). I’m sorry, people, but I need to emote.
This birthday is a really big deal for me, as Sophie’s mom. Because you see, it’s the first one she’s ever cared about. The receptive part of Sophie’s speech delay had kept her from really understanding exactly what a birthday was. Last year was the first year she really got it, but she was pretty shy then, and didn’t like being the center 0f attention, or being at parties and large gatherings. So, last year, we didn’t even really have a party. Just a small, family-only gathering at my mom’s house. She opened her presents away from the group, in the dining room with just Bobby and me and my mom. She just really was not into people staring at her while she did so! We didn’t do singing, no candles, just a very low-key celebration. She liked her gifts, but they were all things I had picked out because she hadn’t really grasped the idea that you could ask for things for your birthday, even.
But, oh, how a year has changed things.
Now she is so excited about her birthday party, her friends, her Hello Kitty cake, her pinata, and oh, the presents. The presents, the presents, the presents. As I mentioned a few days ago, she has already made quite the list of things she wants for her birthday and Christmas. She got twenty bucks in an early birthday card from my Grandma yesterday and immediately wanted to go to Target and spend it. (Which we did, as I am the indulgent mother). Up and down the aisles of Target we strolled, Sophie pointing joyously to everything she saw, saying, “I want this for my birthday! I want this for my birthday! I want that, too!” It’s so fun for me to see her so excited about stuff. I know it’s just stuff, and it’s not that I want to raise a material girl, but the fact that she’s caught up and is acting in such an age-appropriate way about her birthday has me giddy.
She wants it all. And because she finally wants it all, and because honestly, the child has worked her butt off in therapy an at home for the last 13 months, I want to give it to her. So I *may* have gone a wee bit overboard this year. But I’ll try not to make a habit of it.
Because what she doesn’t know, but I know, when I look at her, is that she already has it all. She’s all caught up, she’s where she needs to be. She is sweet, smart, beautiful, and loved. She has it all.
I’ve decided to include some technology-related posts in my series on working with your developmentally delayed child at home. And since I’m currently reviewing a Motorola Xoom for the Verizon Wireless #MidwestMoms, I thought I’d share with you some of the great therapy apps I’ve found for the Xoom!
This past summer Sophie did some speech therapy at a clinic that used an iPad and apps during therapy. I didn’t even know there were apps for therapy, and her providers told me she did really great with them. But we didn’t have an iPad, so I didn’t give it much thought. (I do have one now, which I got about the same time as I got the Xoom. Bobby surprised me for my birthday, because he knew how much I wanted to use therapy apps with Sophie.)
When I got the Xoom, the first thing I did was try to find speech therapy apps for it, but I couldn’t find any right away. I assumed that they just hadn’t caught on for the Android market yet but that they would. But I kept looking and eventually, I did find some, and I was SO excited!! There is a great company called Super Duper Publications that makes speech therapy apps for Android that work on the Xoom. I purchased a couple of these and loved them, so then I contacted Super Duper to see if they would let me review a few more. I still haven’t made my way through all of them, but here are four of my favorites that I’ve used with Sophie so far. These are available for Android, iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. They look, sound, and work AWESOME on the Xoom!!!
Let’s Name Things: This is a great app for teaching your child that things go into categories. The app is basically 52 picture cards with sounds that reads the card when you touch the picture. Then you and your child can take turns naming things in the category. This is something Sophie and I worked on all summer and oh, how I wish I’d had the app then! It’s just a lot more fun that me saying, “Sophie let’s think of things…” she loves interacting with the app. If you’re a professional, the app allows you to list all your patients or students separately, and email their results at the end of the session! Very, very great for tracking data. (All of the apps I am listing today have this feature.)
card from "Let's Name Things" app
OH, and did I mention that Let’s Name Things is FREE on the Android market and the Apple App store until November 20th?? GO DOWNLOAD IT! Even if your child is not speech-delayed, this app is a great activity to do with them!
“WH” Questions at School – I love, love, love the “WH” apps (there is one for “Home” also). This is a major thing myself and Sophie’s SLPs have worked with her since she started speech. When she first started speech at three-and-a-half, she was not answering ANY questions, and after she got a grasp on that, the work began on differentiating between the different “WH’ questions. For parents like me, who aren’t therapy professionals, it’s hard to know what questions to ask exactly. These apps take care of that! I don’t have to try and come up with questions anymore, hallelujah! And the app is made so that you can select only the questions you want (for instance, in the school deck, some questions aren’t yet appropriate for Sophie since she is only in PreK.) I can also score her results in this app, and once again, she really enjoys interacting with it. She is really pretty good with her WH questions now and the apps have helped me determine what she knows and what she still needs to work on. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
"WH" Questions at School
Understanding Inferences – Inferences can be difficult for a speech-delayed child to catch on to. So this app is a great tool to help them develop their powers of deduction. Sophie really likes this one; I think it is fun for her to try figure out the answer. It’s challenging but she’s doing great with it and again, it lets me see what she knows and what she still needs to work on. Like the other apps, it’s easy to use and keep track of the student’s scores and progress.
Understanding Inferences
Practicing Pragmatics – This is the first Super Duper app I purchased. Oh my goodness I was so excited to find it! Pragmatics is also something that many speech-delayed kids have to be taught and don’t just pick up naturally. So when I found this app I was pumped, because once again, I am not a professional and I didn’t know what questions to ask and topics to cover. Thank goodness the folks who made this app ARE professionals! Like all the others, it features pictures and voice, and is very easy to use. Sophie and I really enjoy this one together, talking about what the proper response is to specific situations. She is doing great with this one as well, and again it helps me to know what she already knew and what things I need to teach her.
Practicing Pragmatics
These apps look great and work great on the Xoom. I am SO happy to be able to use the Xoom to work with Sophie on speech. I was spending plenty of money not only on therapy, but on books and board games to help her learn certain things. Although buying a tablet to use these apps on is certainly an investment, you can use the tablet for many areas of your life. And the apps are very reasonably priced, topping out at about $5.99. Last year I spent over $20 on a deck of 25 flashcards that were “WH” questions because I just couldn’t find any anywhere. I shudder to think of how much I paid for those! These apps are definitely a much better value. So if you have a device you can get them on, I highly recommend them! I will have more Super Duper app reviews coming soon. In the meantime, you can check out all their apps for Android here (Xoom-compatible!) and a complete listing of their apps for all devices here.
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As part of the Verizon Wireless #MidwestMoms campaign, I received a Motorola Xoom and six months of service. Super Duper Publications provided me with two free apps to facilitate this review, and two I had already purchased myself.
I’ve been doing a series on helping your child overcome developmental delays at home for a few weeks now. Let me say (again) that these posts are based on my experience with my daughter Sophie; I am NOT a professional! However, all of these ideas and activities have worked for Sophie and I and I want to pass them along in case they may be of help to someone else. Here are some activities to do with your speech-delayed child.
1) Read, Read, READ books! Sophie’s speech delay was primarily receptive, so I used books to help her understand new experiences and concepts. I highly recommend the First Experiences series from Usborne Books. These helped me teach Sophie what it meant to go to the dentist, the doctor, school, etc. They are awesome! Also, any books with repetition are great – such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? and the companion books of that line by Eric Carle. But really – just READ. Read a lot of books, all kinds. Read, read, read.
2) BrainQuest cards – these are flipbooks of cards that ask a variety of different questions based on age-level. I started with an age level below what Sophie’s age and we worked our way up. The objective for me was not that she get all the answers right – first, the cards helped me learn what concepts she did and did not understand. As we went through the decks, we shared the answers together and after awhile (we would do a few cards every time we worked together) she got the concepts and could answer questions correctly. Then, we’d move up to the next level. These cards are great for any child, but they gave me some great material for helping Sophie, and I didn’t have to make up stuff on my own.
3) Puzzles – A Melissa & Doug puzzle that makes noise, like this one, is a great tool. I’d take all the pieces out of the puzzle, then ask, “Sophie, which vehicle has a whistle and goes on tracks?” Then, I’d let her answer and put the puzzle piece in. She was rewarded with the fun choo-choo sound of the train. This helped her with vocabulary, distinguishing differences between the different vehicles, answering questions, and categorizing. (I didn’t make this up, I learned this activity by watching Sophie’s speech language pathologist do it with her.)
4) Have a little doll talk. One of Sophie’s challenges was conversation. She always had a great vocabulary and good articulation but she didn’t converse well. So, to teach her how, we got out two of her favorite dolls and made them talk to each other. At first, I did all the talking for both dolls and she giggled and watched. Then, I gave her a doll and told her what to make it say, and she repeated it. After awhile, she got the idea and she’d initiate turns in the conversation herself. Then she was able to take what she learned from our “doll talk” and take it with her into social situations. Now, you’d never know the girl was once at a loss for words! Just this weekend she made a new friend at Chick-fil-a in the play place. Yesterday when we drove by Chick-fil-a again, she said, “Mommy, I made a new friend at Chick-fil-a. I said ‘What’s your name? My name is Sophie.’ and her name was Emily and she played with me!” That got a big smile from me!
Those are just a few things that worked for us in general. Once you are able to find out what your child’s needs are, work on making your play time with them really intentional as well as your work time!
Stay tuned for some more specifically targeted language-developing activities coming up in the series.
To see all my posts on overcoming delays, click here.
Have fun being intentional while you play with your little ones today!
