Delay in Reciprocal Conversation...Help!
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| Wed, 02-07-2007 - 9:18pm |
O.k.....everday it's something new. Jack is Pdd-Nos and gets play therapy and a SEIT. He is very bright and has a broad and advanced vocabulary however, because of the social issues, he does not always apply his knowledge appropriately. He was eval. for speech but did not qualify. I'm going back to committee within the next 6 weeks and I'm going to demand OT (for sensory issues) and now I am wondering about requesting speech as well BUT I do not know if I am going down the right path.
When he was initially eval. he had just started echoing...it was new but it obviously was a concern. It started off slowly and then increased and then about 3-4 weeks after his dx it just sort of 'disappeared'. Of course, the evaluator focused heavily on this (as she should have) however, as his mom I really felt as though it was not true echoing, instead it was just a stall tactic. Anotherwords, he was only echoing when he was being asked questions (usually open-ended) and he could not find the words to answer. I felt as though he was echoing to buy himself more time because he knew the socially appro[riate thing to do was answer but he just really did not know HOW to answer. For example, if I asked him what he had for snack at school (concrete question) he would quickly respond crackers w/o any echoing. If I then asked him, what was his favorite thing he did in school then he would echo the question. During that time, I began to make him aware of the echoing and then I narrowed down the question to something like 'was your favorite thing gym class or story time' I then would get a response, he may even say at that point no, I liked project time the best. Is that because his brain had more time to process the initial question OR ...I don't even know??????
Now, flash forward a few months and the echoing has dimished drastically to almost non-existent BUT he is still struggling in the area of reciprocal conversation. Using the above example, if he said he liked the project the best, he would never spontaneously start telling me about the project, etc. In addition, any 'conversation' held with Jack usually does not go beyond 2 or 3 exchanges before he is off and running. Now, my question is this age appropriate or would you guys consider this a sig. delay? He is my first and any and all stages are new regardless of dx. And would speech services, in addition to all the other services, help him improve on reciprocal conversation. His play therapy is great but will that really help him 'organize' his words so he can use his intellect/vocabulary.
Any information would be so helpful as I am not even sure which discipline would address this issue.
Thanks,
Anne

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Hey Anne,
My dh was born and raised in hauppauge!!
What a small world! My husband and I grew in towns that border hauppuage and we settled here, after college, about 6 yeras ago.
It's amazing how things just keep coming to you as far as possible dx and therapies.....when we were setting up the original eval. both my husband and i laughed when they said they wanted to do a speech because of all the things going on, we felt as though speech was the last thing he needed and we did not want to waste any time. well, of course, since all evals are sooooooooooooooo surface, he came back scoring very high. now, almost 4 months later through my own research and observations i am beginning to be more and more convinced that he can benefit greatly from speech.
j
ust as you described, the more vocab. gained and his thoughts and ideas expand, the more difficulties he is having w/ organizing his thoughts....and good point about the echoing being a stim...never thought about it that way.
going thru this whole thing you obviously learn so much but the most important thing is to 'let go' of previous ideas of what you thought were typical behaviors, etc. for example, if someone had asked me 6 months ago if i thought jack suffered from anxiety i would have said NO WAY BUT that's because when you think of anxiety you think, child hiding behind your leg, a child not wanting to go anywhere, a child shying away from people, etc. and that was NOT jack at all. he was always the first one to run right into a party, say hello to a new person but anxiety can come in all forms SUCH as 'stimming' (ear flicking, tongue thrashing, echoing). perhaps jack's brain and speech (expressive AND receptive) is jumbled and he stims to overcome the anxiety of not always knowing how to interpret AND respond in social situations.
just this morning, he said to me "mommy, we ate the banana that i brought into school and it smelled yummy and everyone liked it"...talk about a really great sentence w/ lots of details HOWEVER, this was an answer to question that i asked him about 15 hours earlier!
anyway, my developmental ped. really listened to my concerns and will be including a recommendation for speech in her evaluation....the committee will have a tough time fighting that one i think...or hope.
anne
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