Being More Direct

I had a parent say in a meeting that they didn't know what I was working on in therapy. My supervisor knew what I was doing and saw me working on them when she observed. I learned I needed to be more upfront and direct about what each activity is working on. I tell my parents to be more purposeful with what they're saying and try to get their kiddo to request. I have to remember to be more purposeful in how I am coaching parents to work with their kids.

Sometimes I have a problem because as much as I will say, "Let's play with a puzzle to request or label." The parent needs to be the one that gets that kiddo to sit and complete the activity. Some parents don't like to upset their kiddo. Now to be clear, upsetting kids is not my goal but sometimes they're not happy to have demands put on them. They get used to it and are more compliant when there is carryover.

Doing in-person or teletherapy, carryover is needed. I can always tell when there is carryover in the home. I always ask how the week went and if they worked on the strategies I had suggested the week before. At the end of each session, I suggest they work on certain things. Now though I'll be more direct about why I'm asking them to work on that activity.

My favorite activities lately seem to be toys with multiple pieces like blocks, puzzles, or shape sorters. A lot of my kids, especially lately, need to work on requesting and following adult directions. I personally feel like the pandemic and being home so much with just family has a lot to do with it. They have been with family and family hasn't tried to push them to talk for many reasons. Families have been so busy trying to work at home, and kids had staying home instead of going to daycare because of Covid. Fighting with a toddler to use their words wasn't happening with all the families had going on. Also, a lot of parents thought they were too little until they went to a checkup and found out they should have been saying more words.

For blocks, I like to coach the parents to take control of the blocks. They can work on requesting with signs or verbally. Also dumping the blocks can be overwhelming for some kids. For littles or non-verbal kids, I begin with signing "more." They are more likely to imitate actions and the adult can do hand over hand to help them sign it. As they go you can build up to the phrase "I want more." Vocabulary I work on "more, up, down, fall down, on top, push, pull, off."

For puzzles, I also coach to take the pieces so the kiddo can request for more. They can also work on identifying from a field of 2 when 2 choices are offered. Depending on the puzzle, they can work on environmental sounds for animals or vehicles. They can work on identifying colors or shapes but I usually push that off to later. They can work more on that in preschool. I want to work on more functional vocabulary. Often I suggest offering 2 choices, but it's not even to identify it's to be able to pick one choice.

I do the same things with the shape sorter, again just to make choices. It's good for trial and error and matching. I'm not as concerned about identifying shapes.