Springtime Therapy

My client A. is an 11 year old girl that has been seen in the clinic since fall of this year. She was referred from a diagnostic, and is currently diagnosed as being memory/language delayed. Some of the things we work on in therapy is mnemonic devices for memory, following three part directions, and reading comprehension.

In therapy we work on reading comprehension because children with language delay often cannot find the main idea or organizing frame even in simple texts. Structures of narrative and expository texts differ greatly and can affect comprehension and memory. (Owens, 2004)

I see this with A. because one of her goals is to read a paragraph and retell the story on a story board. Repetition in her case does seem to help. I have her reread the story to herself after she has read it out loud.

A. has improved, but still struggles in this area. The overall organizational abilities of these children may account for reading and writing problems. Incoming information needs to be organized for comprehension, because reading comprehension is fundamental to academic success. (Owens, 2004)

Owens, Jr., R. E. (2004). Language Disorders A Functional Approach to Assessment and Intervention (4th ed.).

All about my Client A.

My client A. is an 11 year old girl that is currently diagnosed as being language delayed. A. has been in therapy since she was first referred from a diagnostic performed this fall. Many potential causes could lead to language disorders, and hers is currently unknown. A school-age child who has limited language skills is likely to be considered as having a language learning disability or simply a learning disability. (Hedge, 2001) It seems that A. has been placed in this category at school.

A. is still working on the same goals she had last semester, which consisted of reading stories and picking out the main idea and details of the story and following functional directions. We have added a few more goals since then. She complains of having problems with remembering things in school, so we have started to work on mnemonic devices this semester. We have also started to work on rote counting, which is the storage and retrieval of numbers without comprehension. (Nicolosi, 2004) We feel that this may help her with multiplication, which is currently a problem for her.

So far I feel that A.’s therapy is going in a good direction. She seems to enjoy what we do and feels that it is a challenge. A. shows improvement and is moving to more complicated goals in therapy.

References:
Hedge, M.N. (2001). Introduction to Communication Disorders 3rd Edition. p155

Nicolosi, L., Harryman, E., Kresheck, J. (2004). Terminology of Communication Disorders 5th Edition. P. 194