Update: Speech Therapy

It's been a while since I've updated about Rachel's ongoing speech therapy.

Rachel continues to receive one on one Speech Therapy once a week here in the comfort of our own home. We are so blessed to have a speech therapist that comes to our home to do speech therapy with Rachel. Dr. D'Antonio spends countless hours outside of therapy time preparing and planning for Rachel's speech. We know how lucky we are, for if Rachel was receiving Speech Therapy at school, it would be in a group setting, and not tailored for Rachel's specific speech needs.

It's hard to believe that we're coming up on eleven months of therapy. With the exception of three, maybe four times, we've had therapy every week since May of last year! It's encouraging to see all the hard work paying off through compliments of other people, and the clearness of Rachel's speech.We've recently moved on to the last sound that Rachel needs to master. That sound is the sound of the letter "R". This task will take some time and then it'll be on to some "R" blends and ultimately working on carrying over things learned to conversational speech.

A lot of weeks, Rachel doesn't open up and talk excessively with Dr. D when she comes to do therapy. Dr. D will ask about Rachel's school day and the previous weekend. Sometimes, most of the time, it's like pulling teeth to get Rachel to talk. Which is frustrating because at the dinner table she's the last one eating as the rest of us have finished eating as she's been talking the entire time. LOL. So today, we did speech therapy in a different way...

Today, we went to lunch with Dr. D'Antonio and then went to Toys R Us to help point out some games that could easily be converted to games she can use for speech fun. Being away from the kitchen table, the usual place of therapy, proved to be very helpful. Dr. D'Antonio said at the end of our time together that what she got today was equivalent to what three weeks of therapy would have been. Rachel was talkative and relaxed and had fun looking for sounds she's worked on in the kids menu. It definitely was a nice change for therapy. It also gave Dr. D an idea as to where to go from here. It was a successful outing that may have to be worked again.