Today was my last day at Pediatric Therapy Associates and I had the chance to sit in on some speech-language pathology sessions (room seen in pics). The first session was a combination of both OT and speech therapy at the same time, so both therapists were in the room. This is because the child has difficulty focusing for extended periods of time. For her session we set up a sequence activity where she first had to “cross the lava” to work on balance, then she took a few minutes to work on her speech, and finished with shooting some baskets. The therapist showed her a picture of a boy on a beach and asked her what she saw in the picture. Then using the phrases she said the girl had to put them together to make sentences. When she finished with an object in the picture she could color it in.
The second speech session was explicitly focused on making the correct sounds and pronunciation. The child struggles with the middle constants of words (ex: saying mo-ey instead of mon-ey) and with making an “s” sound without having his tongue between his teeth. During his session, he practiced looking in the mirror and repeating words with “s” in different places within the word. He also practiced with letter puzzles where he matched two pieces to make a word based on syllables. He then had to say the word to practice pronouncing both parts of the word.
Over these past 4 days, I have learned a ton about OT and SLP and really enjoyed the experience!