Announcing: New Supportive Music Class!

I am a huge believer in the positive influences music has on a child’s development.  The impact of learning rhythm, movement, and melodies  on a young child’s brain is well-researched.  For many years, I have enrolled my own children in Music Together® programs, attending classes in both San Francisco and Chicago.  In these classes I watched my boys learn to sing along with a group, explore and play instruments, internalize a sense of rhythm, dance, and discover the joy that comes with a wonderful musical experience.  We were given CDs of each semester’s songs so that we could continue to listen and enjoy the music at home and in the car. Music was an everyday part of our lives and I found that when I was taking those classes with my kids I more naturally incorporated singing and rhythm into my speech/language therapy sessions, too, with great results.

But over the years I saw children in our classes who had challenges that simply made the classes too difficult for them to manage week after week.  Sometimes I suspected that the transitions happened too quickly for them, and in other situations I could see that sound sensitivity was causing discomfort as a child had to leave the room for the loud or high-pitched songs.  Maybe the group was too large for some.  The teachers were fully open, welcoming and warm with all students, but I saw some kids who eventually just stopped coming.  This always upset me, because I felt that with some specific modifications, those kids could have gotten just as much enjoyment and learning out of the classes as the rest of the children.

This past year I approached the directors of a fabulous local Music Together® program I am familiar with on the north side of Chicago, Merry Music Makers, to discuss what we could do for these kids in order to create a more comfortable environment for them.  The outcome is a brand new class for ages 0-5 that will be taught by my fabulous associate, Laura Allison, who happens to be a talented musician in addition to her amazing skills as a speech-language pathologist!  Laura has completed the intensive Music Together® training and will be teaching this fantastic 10-week class at our clinic on Saturday mornings, starting in January.  Here is our official class description:

MIXED AGE – Supportive Environment
This Mixed Age Supportive Environment Music Together® class will offer increased support to children exhibiting regulation disorders, speech issues, sensory processing disorders or developmental delays. They will attend alongside their typically developing siblings. Adaptations will be made so that each child can participate to the best of his or her ability. The instructor will use visual aids to accompany music and activities, adjusting sensory input as needed to maximize the engagement and enjoyment of each child. Communication between parents and the instructor will provide parents with strategies to increase engagement and participation of their children. It is our goal to offer an experience rich in music, movement and interaction in a fun and supportive environment.

If you or someone you know is in the Chicago area and would be interested in this class, please visit the registration page at the Merry Music Makers website!  Registration opens on Monday, November 16.

Caweew Day

A couple days ago I was asked by a fellow parent at my boys’ school if I could fill a last-minute hole in the Career Day schedule at school.  In the interest of full disclosure here, I will admit that I tend to skulk around on the sidelines wearing dark hooded cloaks and huge Hollywood sunglasses when those notices and emails come out about the school’s annual Career Day.  Why is that?  I love my job and I don’t mind talking to people, especially kids, so I couldn’t tell you.  Believe it or not, I have a fundamental shyness that sometimes takes over, and this is one of those times.

But I like this mom who’s organizing it and I didn’t have anything going on that I couldn’t rearrange, so I said yes, sure, I’d talk about my job for 20 minutes to a second grade class.

Every few hours over the past couple of days I suggested to myself, You should really think about what you’re going to talk about on Thursday morning, and then promptly didn’t.  Seriously, I had no idea.  No notes, no particular structure to what I wanted to tell them.  I had more questions than answers: Do I stop and talk about autism, or is that my whole 20 minutes and not really the point of this? What do I do?  How do I put that into words for little kids? And so I truly walked in there with a head full of questions and absolutely no plan this morning.

I realize now that I probably did this because I knew on some level that I didn’t need a plan.  After all, I am comfortable performing, I regularly spend many hours a day talking to large groups of adults, and I am extremely used to being around groups of children.  It’s what I do all day.  I might be reticent about signing myself up for this, but when asked, it’s not actually a challenge.

So I walked in with all sorts of bubbly enthusiasm and asked them if they knew why I was visiting.  The first boy to raise his hand told me, “Because it’s Caweew Day!” (Sign him up!)  Next, I told them what I do for a living.  Half a dozen kids yelled, “Ooooh!!” and  jumped out of their seats waving their hands at me, like they had been in a secret club for years and I was their long-lost leader finally come to claim them.  Those were the kids who go to speech therapy.  I knew that before they told me, and so I let them tell the rest of the class what I do for a living.  They did a pretty good job, describing work on /r/ and /l/ sounds, writing, letter sounds, and sign language.  I talked to them about all the names for my job: speech-language pathologist, speech therapist, speech teacher. And then I told them that I prefer to be called something different.  A hand shot up. “Mom?” asked one of the boys confidently, sure he had it right (I had told them that I have two children in their school).  Delighted, I ran over and gave him a high-five, telling him that yes, absolutely, I love to be called “Mom” at home, and then told them that I prefer to be called a Communication Therapist at work.

I explained to them what communication is all about and the importance of non-verbal communication.  I invited my little “Caweew Day” pal to come up for a role play. I had him ask me to play with him on the playground and I demonstrated how I could answer him in various ways without words, and the fact that he was watching me and understanding my facial expressions and gestures without my having to instruct him to do so.  I explained how important that is, and that I teach kids to do that and to pay more attention to it.  We talked about play groups and AAC devices and good toys for therapy.  I let the kids who go to speech be the superstars and tell their friends their favorite speech games.

There were some wonderful questions.  One girl up front raised her hand and asked me if the job is “Fun — or scary?”.  I asked her what she thought might be scary, and she suggested that when a new kid comes in I might feel a little scared sometimes because I wouldn’t know what they’re like.  What an astute question.  I suppose it was a window into how the kids feel when they walk in to the clinic for the first time.  I explained that I don’t feel scared about any kids but that if I ever feel nervous around a new student it would only be because I might wonder if I’ll be able to help them enough (although I pointed out that the longer you do the job the less you worry about this).

Next, a boy raised his hand and asked the apparently all-important second grade question: “Who’s the boss at your work?”  When I answered, “I’m the boss there,” 25 heads snapped to attention and 25 pairs of eyes stared at me in wonder.  Another boy shared, “My dad’s the boss at his work.  You have to get there first to be the boss,” followed by a rambling explanation of his father’s career history.  Okay!  Then another worldly wise boy asked, “So did you buy the shop?” which prompted me to describe the clinic where I work and explain my space rental and share set-up.  (See, it’s really good that I didn’t plan anything, because how could you plan for this?)  I must’ve described the environment and tone of our clinic really well because suddenly a sweet boy who’d been bouncing up and down on a slanted foam cushion the whole time made a strong association – he raised his hand and told me he goes to my favorite local OT clinic and and who his therapist was, and I told him to tell her “hello” for me.  We had a moment, he and I.  I loved that these kids were all proudly sharing their therapies with each other and I can tell you for sure that the kids who’ve never gone to a therapist for anything were dying of jealousy.  I might’ve emphasized how awesome it is just a little bit here and there.

Before I left I asked how many of them thought they might want to be speech therapists when they grew up and at least 90% of their hands shot up.  I’m guessing the response was going to be 100% if asked by the guests who came in after me – musicians with props – but given the fact that I didn’t know about speech pathology as a career option until my senior year in college, I figured this was pretty good.

Something tells me I’ll put away the dark cloak and sunglasses and volunteer to spend the whole morning doing these talks next year.

When You’ve Got a “Bad Fit”

My own 5-year old son Lyle recently expressed an interest in playing the violin.  Having played violin and viola myself growing up, I was absolutely thrilled.  I signed him up for some private lessons and rented violins for both of us.  For a few weeks, I’ve been relearning to play some simple pieces of music and he has loved listening and learning the little things I can teach him while we waited for our class to begin.

His first lesson was last Monday, at a reputable music school here in Chicago.  I sat in and observed.  His teacher moved fast.  She was intense. She wasn’t “mean”, but there was no small talk, no friendly chatter.  She moved right into work on posture  – holding the instrument properly – and told me that he wouldn’t pick up the bow for at least 2-3 weeks.  She spent the full thirty minutes on a sequence of movements required to move from “concert rest position” to “playing position”.  Each time Lyle moved his arm into a correct position he also accidentally moved one of his feet a step and had to start over from the beginning.  It was a bit like boot camp and hard to watch, but I was impressed that he stuck with it and cooperated so beautifully.

However, the instant she told him he was finished, he rushed across the room, fell into my arms, and sobbed.  She didn’t address this, simply let the next student into the room and pushed us quickly out the door, Lyle still crying.  He cried all the way to the car, raging at me, saying he never wanted to take another lesson, never wanted to go back.  He asked if he could keep his violin, but I told him we couldn’t keep the rental instrument if he didn’t take lessons.  I assured him that we could find another teacher, however.  Much to my shock, by the time we got home he told me determinedly that he would go back.  I was simultaneously impressed and appalled.

All week I grappled with this.  Was the teacher too harsh? – or is this the way you teach a young child a challenging instrument like the violin? I don’t remember starting out that way, but perhaps I’ve forgotten.  A friend told me it reminded her of early ballet lessons, in which you must master the positions before you can dance.  But shouldn’t she have established some sort of rapport with him first, made a connection with the child? – or was I applying what a good therapist does to a different situation, one that doesn’t necessarily require it?  She was teaching him skills and he was capable of learning them with repetition, I saw that.  But was it meaningful to him? No.  Was he motivated to learn from her? No.  So how could it be different from a negative therapeutic situation, then?

In fact, although he was determined to continue so that he could keep his beloved tiny violin, I watched my son struggle more and more as the week went on.  His anxiety grew more with each day, and his behavior became extremely controlling and defiant.  He wanted to be in charge of every conversation and everything anyone asked him to do.  The closer we got to the second lesson, the less tolerable his behavior.  On Saturday morning, we had to leave a Halloween festival we’d invited friends to because he was acting downright belligerent.

I could see it quite clearly.  He was turning the tables on us, acting out exactly what he felt the teacher had done to him.  She had controlled every move he made for thirty minutes straight.  He’d never seen an adult act like that with a child.  Each time I tried to discuss it with him, he waffled painfully; on one hand, he never wanted to go back to that teacher again. “I HATE violin,” he shouted at me angrily, at least once a day.  On the other hand, he was asking to go back to her rather than another, unknown, teacher.  He didn’t want to give up that violin.

And I still wondered: Can he do it?  Should he do it?  Is this how he needs to learn?  Will he simply get used to her style?  Should he?  After all, we need to be able to learn from different kinds of teachers, don’t we? Do we pull the plug this fast, or give him one more week, especially since he says he’s actually willing to go back?

But I watched my son and saw how incredibly dysregulated he was becoming, and noted that it was worsening every day, and decided to cancel the lessons.   I realized suddenly that this is exactly the kind of thing I talk about at work all the time with families.  The violin teacher did all of the things I warn against in therapy:  she was introduced to a brand new child and immediately started drilling discrete skills (e.g., posture and movement sequences) without establishing any rapport whatsoever, without placing those skills into a meaningful context (e.g., music), moving too fast, and talking too loudly (not adjusting pace and volume to a child’s developmental level and temperament).  There wasn’t a word of praise. When he had a negative reaction to the session, she did not address or acknowledge it even for a moment.  And, thanks to these missteps, my child’s behavior took a huge turn for the worse in a matter of only 5 days, even with me processing it with him every day.  (Imagine a child with a classroom teacher, therapist, or aide who behaves this way towards him at school?  Think about the “naughty” behavior we’d be seeing!  What if a parent didn’t see it, and so didn’t know what accounted for his sudden change in behavior at home? All that I have described was observed after only a single 30-minute session with the wrong teacher.)

Maybe what my son’s violin teacher was doing is considered to be an optimal way to begin this particular instrument and some kids can learn that way, but my kid clearly isn’t one of them – and I simply cannot feel bad about that.  A good teacher or therapist of any kind doing individual work is going to assess a student long enough to figure out who this child is and meet him right where he is developmentally in order to move forward.  I don’t think that would’ve taken more than five minutes in this case.  This is exactly why I always do a free initial session with a new client: to make certain that both the child and the adult are comfortable with each other.  No therapist or teacher is going to be a good fit for every child.

Once Lyle knew he’d never see that teacher again, he was able to relax.  His behavior was back to normal within 24 hours.  I have a couple other violin teachers for us to meet with this week and he’s happy about that.  Maybe one of them will be a better match and we’ll continue on this road, and maybe not.  In the end, it doesn’t matter.  But one thing is for certain: we are not going to suffer through 8 weeks of lessons with the wrong teacher.  Lyle showed us very clearly how he felt about that.

Kids will tell us when they’re comfortable with an adult; it’s our job to listen to them.  Their learning depends on it.

Q&A: “Transitions and Emotional Processing” (Part III)

I am somewhat horrified to realize that two months have passed since I promised you Part 3 of the “Transitions and Emotional Processing” series I began last summer, but I see that Part 2 was posted the week before school started.  I can now safely say that it takes me two full months to get myself and my family into the school routine before I can get back on track!

If you didn’t read Part 1 and Part 2 (or need a refresher on them), I recommend going back to read those posts before reading this conclusion.  As promised I can give you some follow-up information about how the suggestions I gave goodfountain in those first two posts worked out for her daughter Charlotte.

The day after I gave her my recommendations, I received a copy of the heart-warming photo above, attached to the following email:

We went to a nature preserve today to walk one of the trails.

When it was time to get dressed, I started talking to Charlotte about how this was a place that was for shorts and tennies, not dresses and slippers.

She said, “Can I take it with me?”

And with the memory of your email in my head, I said, “Sure! You can take it!”

She went and found her backpack and packed her dress, her shoes and her necklace in it and carried it the whole time.

Not even a single whine about getting dressed.

The following week, I checked in with goodfountain again about how things were going and received more information:

What I am seeing is that I have to basically use ALL of these strategies and rotate among them. Carrying the dress in the backpack worked a couple of times. Referencing the little card with things to do when she feels angry has worked a few times. I haven’t had a chance to do any big feelings discussion, but I did make a list of where we can and can’t wear the dress. That helped some, for a couple of days, along with not ignoring the dress issue. I just bring it up right away and we tackle it head-on.

Another thing that has helped is giving her some good motivation. The other day I got no complaints from her when we went to return the guinea pig to school because I let her ride in the back next to the cage (I folded half the third row down and put cage there). She changed out of her dress right away.

It seems that the best thing is having an arsenal of things to try while we weather out the “storm” of these passing phases. She’s not going to be obsessed with a Belle dress forever, but she’ll move on to something else. And I’ll adapt the strategies. And eventually it will all sink in.  Having a variety of different things to try with her has made getting through the difficulties a lot easier.

This is an excellent point.  It is so helpful for caregivers, teachers, and therapists to have that “arsenal” of strategies to try when things get challenging.  No one strategy will work every time – we need to be on our toes and think flexibly in the moment.

I’m curious: what other strategies have you tried in a situation like this?

We Have a Winner!

The winner of the signed copy of Vicki Forman’s “This Lovely Life” was chosen at www.random.org and Commenter #2 won!  Cassie Soofi, SLP, it’s all yours!  It’ll go into the mail to you this week.

Thanks to those who entered, I hope you pick up a copy of this amazing book!

Q & A: “Transitions and Emotional Processing” (Part II)

In my last post, I shared a question from goodfountain, who writes a wonderful blog about life with her two girls, the older of whom has a diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder.  I shared some of my favorite strategies that caregivers (including parents, babysitters, grandparents, and teachers) can use to help ease transitions and prepare children for challenges in their day.

Today I’d like to share a few ideas that might help 5-year old Charlotte with the handling of her overwhelming emotions:

In the moment you described (not wanting to take off her Princess gown to go to Target) when your daughter lost her temper and tried to bite you, she was mostly likely feeling very dysregulated and scared/threatened.  It helps to think about it in those terms, rather than viewing this type of reaction as “negative behavior” – it makes it a lot easier to feel empathetic and is, I think, accurate. She felt really good in that dress and the idea of taking it off was probably very upsetting (and even threatening) to her, so when you added the idea of you and her sister going to the car without her, it increased her anxiety to the point where her fight or flight response was activated – and she chose fight.  In addition to giving you more strategies to help her prepare for such challenges, we want her to start to recognize her internal signals of anger and frustration and learn to manage them before she gets to that point.  As you said so beautifully: “It’s not that I want to STOP her from being angry, but that I want her to not lose control when she IS angry.”

It is critical that we allow our children to own their feelings.  Our job is not to keep them from experiencing negative emotions, but rather to help them identify their emotions, gauge how intense they are, and choose a coping strategy that matches the intensity.

To that end, it is useful to pause often and model this for kids; in other words, let them know how we are feeling. For example, “I am feeling pretty frustrated right now.  The woman in that store wasn’t listening to me at all.  I am going to sit quietly for a minute and take some deep breaths before we go home.”  Similarly, pause in your day to check in with your daughter.  You might find a way to talk about negative emotions that works for her level.  Making a weather analogy is often helpful; we can identify that we’re feeling “sunny”, “partly cloudy”, and be aware that it’s time to come up with strategies when we start to feel “stormy”.  Help her to talk about how she’s feeling and become more aware of the natural changes that occur throughout the day.

We have a great visual aid that I believe I was first introduced to at a SCERTS workshop.  On a small square piece of paper we write on one side: “When I feel angry…” and on the other side it says, “I can…” and then we list 2-4 strategies to help the child calm down, e.g., talk to someone, take a break/quiet space, say “I’m mad,” go get a drink of water, etc.  The child chooses the strategies.  This is laminated and we put a key ring through it and hang a few of them in easy to reach places (they’d be easy to keep in Charlotte’s pocket, looped to a backpack, or in your purse) so when a meltdown starts, we can quietly hand it to the child and they can choose what they want to do to get under control (become more emotionally regulated) without a lot of verbal negotiation.  We generate these strategies with the child him/herself in a quiet moment so that they are meaningful.  It is impossible to reason with an angry or frustrated child in the moment, it really has to happen at a different time.  For a non-reader, picture images can be used just as effectively as words.  In my experience, we don’t usually need to use this external strategy for very long before the child internalizes her own calming strategies and is able to access them without the adult’s help.

Another great strategy for your daughter would be to do some work with The Feelings Book, which is a dry erase book that has pages depicting a wide range of positive and negative emotions.  The child can write down what makes her feel a particular emotion (e.g., angry) on one side, and then generate strategies on the opposite page (When I feel angry, I can…).  She can write it herself if she is older, or dictate to an adult.  This leads to some wonderful conversations about emotions and coping strategies.

I also love that there is a 1-5 scale at the top of each emotion page where the child can think about degrees of emotion, e.g., “Having to turn off the TV makes me a little angry – that’s a ‘2’” but “Taking off my princess gown makes me very angry – that’s a ‘5’!” and you can discuss strategies that work for mild anger versus extreme anger with an older child.  It could be great to use this book together and then use the strategies to create the little portable card described above.  You can order The Feelings Book directly from my colleague who is one of its creators, Emily Rubin, MS, CCC/SLP.  It’s available on her website.  Take a look at it, it’s really great!  We have many copies of this at the clinic and kids of all ages love it and have greatly benefited from it.

What we ultimately want to do is help a child learn strategies to self-regulate (learn to self-soothe, e.g., move away from a stressful situation, go hit a pillow, get a piece of gum) and also be sure they have good mutual regulation skills (e.g., asking for help, asking for a hug, labeling their emotions for someone else).  To be healthy, we all need a balance of self- and mutual-regulation skills.

I’m happy to elaborate or go more deeply into any of this if you would like me to.  Emotional processing is one of my absolute favorite things to work on – it’s so critical to successful relationships throughout the lifespan!

The next post will include a follow-up from Charlotte’s mom, sharing which of these strategies she’s tried and what has worked.

Q & A: “Transitions and Emotional Processing” (Part I)

Question:  I have a question about how to help my 5-year old daughter express and process her anger. (Submitted by the author of the blog goodfountain, who writes beautifully about parenting her two young daughters, one of whom has a diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder)

Here’s an example of what happened today. My daughter Charlotte was wearing her Belle dress. As I usually do, I gave her a plan: we’re going to eat breakfast, play with toys, watch show, get dressed, go to Target. However, when we got to the ‘get dressed’ part of our morning, she said, “Not now, I’m still playing.”  This went on all morning. I even rearranged the plan to give her more time and wrote the plan down; we read it together and she agreed to it.  Still no deal.  Charlotte would not get dressed. Not arguing with me, just ignoring me.  She told me she didn’t want to go to Target because she didn’t want to get dressed; I knew it was because she didn’t want to take off the Belle dress.

While going to Target was not a life-or-death situation, I don’t feel I should let Charlotte dictate what we do, and I don’t want her wearing her princess dresses in public all the time. Finally, out of frustration, I suggested that her sister and I were ready to leave and it was up to her whether to join us. At that point she had a major tantrum (she even tried to bite me!) but when she saw I meant it, she got ready to go.

This kind of anger and expression of anger is popping up more often.  It’s not that I want to STOP her from being angry, but that I want her to not lose control when she IS angry.

Any tips are appreciated!!

Answer: First of all, you did such a great job of writing out the plan for your day, I love that you use that strategy with her.  You were also very flexible with Charlotte in making adjustments to the plan along the way, which was fantastic.  Your statement “It’s not that I want to STOP her from being angry, but that I want her to not lose control when she IS angry” is so well-said.  That’s always my goal, too.

I have some strategies in mind that may help you and your daughter prepare for and cope with making transitions and handle challenging emotions in the future.  In this post I’ll share ideas about some things you can do that might help; in my next post I’ll provide suggestions that can help Charlotte more directly.

In terms of that particular situation, I would recommend sitting down with Charlotte later on (when you’re both relaxed) and making a list together: in one column, list places/times she can wear a princess dress, in the other column, write down the types of places/times she cannot. Make it really concrete and put it in writing so it’s “official”. (Kids tend to respect almost anything you put in writing, especially a good reader like your daughter!)  I’d also make a point of suggesting the dress to Charlotte when you see a time coming up when it would be okay to wear one (“Hey, this would be a great time for a princess dress!  Do you want me to help you put one on?”), so that she feels extra supported in her desire to wear one, but you are reinforcing the concept of an appropriate time.  Obviously, this strategy is situation-specific but is applicable to transitions from all sorts of preferred activities.

Also regarding the dress (or any preferred activity she is involved in that you think will be hard to transition away from when it’s time for something else) — I would be open about discussing it with her before the actual transition and I’d also try giving her some sense of control in the situation.  I always recommend the Time Timers that so many therapists and teachers use.  They’ve worked wonders for me (at home and school) because kids can see how much time they have left – it’s very concrete.  I would say something like this: “I see that you’re wearing your beautiful Belle dress!  You really love that dress and it makes you feel so good to wear it.  I know you remember that ‘going to the store’ is one of those times when we wear our regular clothes, and so pretty soon you’ll need to get changed.  You can decide how many minutes are left before you change, as long as it’s in the next half hour – let’s set the timer so we can see how much time you have left to wear it, and when the red is all gone I’ll help you change.” Or:  “I’m sure you remember that we can’t wear a Belle dress to Target but I don’t mind if you wear one piece of  your princess jewelry to the store as long as you take really good care of it.”

A strategy that works well for my own 5-year old is to let him take something in the car that he doesn’t want to part with – he’s been surprisingly good about leaving an object in the car so it won’t get lost as long as he knows he can hold it when we get back to the car after our errand or visit.  I’d also consider letting a child wear a backpack that contains a favorite dress or toy if it’s small enough.  At work I have a Polaroid camera and when a child doesn’t want to leave something behind when it’s time to go home, I take an instant photo of it for them to carry out with them.

It really comes down to finding a way to show your respect for what they are feeling while making your limits really clear: we don’t wear the dress in Target.

[Stay tuned!  The next post will focus on strategies Charlotte's mom can employ to help her daughter learn to regulate her emotions better when she does become upset.]

Have a Question?

Over the years I have found that there are many “universal” questions about communication development and strategies to help children grow in positive ways.  Therefore, I would like to start a series of “Q & A” posts on this blog this year, in which a reader sends me a question that relates to communication and I answer it publicly, in hopes that others with the same question will benefit from some new ideas.  You can be anonymous if you’d prefer.

If you have a question regarding your child’s communication that you’d like to see answered (either via email or on the blog), please feel free to email it to me at:  jordan@communicationtherapy.net.

The first one will be posted soon!

“This Lovely Life” Book Giveaway!

Back in early 2007 I was preparing to give a talk at the clinic here in Chicago on the topic of “Non-verbal Communication”.  As it happened, just a week before my talk I somehow came across the writing of Ms. Vicki Forman, who wrote the Special Needs Mama column at the Literary Mama website.  And one of the excellent posts I came across, titled “Between the Lines”, was about her experience mothering a child classified by professionals as a non-verbal communicator.  Her son, Evan, 6-years old at the time, was in fact multiply-disabled, having been born at 23-weeks of age, weighing only a pound, and surviving by the skin of his teeth as a newborn.

I immediately sent an email to Vicki, explaining what I was doing and asking her permission to print out the “Between the Lines” essay for the parents I would be speaking to, and she replied immediately: “The short answer is YES, absolutely.”

The long answer turned out to be a wonderful friendship.  I have had the privilege of meeting Vicki and her family in person and have followed her life and writing these past two-and-a-half years. One of the best days of 2009 for me so far was when my pre-ordered copy of her incredible, award-winning memoir, “This Lovely Life” arrived in the mail and was finally in my hands. The book chronicles, with incredible honesty and bravery, the first couple of years of Vicki’s life with Evan after he and his twin sister, Ellie, were born.  It is a magnificent piece of work.  Please read one of many excellent reviews of this book.  This week, Vicki is a Bakeless Fellow in Residence at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Vermont.

Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to be able to fly across the country to be in the audience at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA for the book reading and signing that Vicki did there.  I loved every minute of it, and in my excitement bought an extra copy of “This Lovely Life” and had her sign it for me so that I could give it away to a reader on this blog.

If you are interested in winning this book giveaway, please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing.  Along with your name, please also share with us one book, website, or workshop you have experienced that brought you new insight or changed your perspective on communication, if possible (not required).  I will choose a random winner on September 1 and announce the winner here.  I’m happy to mail the book anywhere in the world.

For those of you in the Chicago area, Vicki Forman is scheduled to do a reading at Women & Children First Bookstore here in Andersonville in late September.  Details to be announced!

Summer Language!

With summer finally here, some of us have the chance to spend a little more time with our kids than we do during the school year. A few ideas for encouraging speech and language development during the time we have with them:

• Engage in self talk. Describing what you’re doing while you play with your child offers a wonderful model for them to follow. If you’re playing in the sand, use simple and enthusiastic language to talk about what your doing (e.g., “I’m scooping sand in the bucket! One scoop, two scoops…”).
• Engage in parallel talk. This is similar to self talk but instead you describe what your child is doing (“You’re scooping sand in the bucket! Wow, that’s lots of sand!”). This not only provides a rich language example but also allows for a shared focus of attention, meaning that you’re focused on the same thing that your child is.
• Use linguistic mapping. This is a fancy term for what’s more commonly called “putting words in someone else’s mouth”. If your child expresses a nonverbal intention (i.e., holding up a toy), model simple language to describe the intention (“It’s Elmo! I”m so glad you showed me!”).
• Expand on what your child says. You can help in developing your child’s language by adding grammatical markers and semantic information to the things they say. For example, if your child points to a chair and says “Daddy chair”, you can expand on this by saying “Yes, Daddy is sitting in the chair!”
• Extend your child’s utterances. This is like expanding except you push what your child has said just a little bit further by adding some new information. So again, if your child says “Daddy chair,” you can extend it by saying “Daddy just sat down! He’s feeling a little tired. “
• Limit the questions you ask your child and focus more on providing an example. Get down on their level, model simple language, and slow down. All these things help to keep pressure and demands low, providing an environment that encourages spontaneous imitation and production.
• Always acknowledge communication attempts! Any communication is good! We want to encourage our children to be competent communicators and one way of doing this is to recognize when they make the effort. Obviously this is not always possible but the more often we can do it, the better. *It’s important to note here that acknowledging does not always equal them getting what they want! If they do a superb job asking for a cookie but you already told them ‘no’, tell them you understand and that it must be disappointing to not get something they want. Give them feedback on how well you understood what they wanted!