Speech Therpy Week 3

So far, I have shadowed our speech therapist three times. I am learning a lot and really enjoying it. This week, I went with Lauren on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday like I have been doing. We saw 3 kids on this day. Normally, we see more but since the holidays are coming up more people have been canceling.
The first kid we saw (I will call him CH) was a 2 year old little boy who has some speech delays. Lauren is doing educational play with him. Educational play is where you incorporate sounds, and simple words with toys that the child likes. When we first arrived at his house, he was a little shy and would not come around me. But by the end of the session, he was my new little friend. We were playing, talking and I even got a hug when we left. This one little boy made my day so much better; I would love to see him again.
After there, we went to see a 5 year old little girl, named Kay. She has down syndrome and is so adorable. When we arrived, she opened the door for us and told me hello. She is a very talkative little girl. Lauren is working on counting, colors, shapes and naming objects with her. We played lots of games and did a lot of naming things.
From there, we went to Jo’s house. This is the little girl I got to see the very first time I went with Lauren. She is doing a little better since the last time I saw her. She is now teething, sitting up better, not grinding her teeth as much and eating more. Also, they have a occupational therapist for her and they are working on walking. While we were there, she had a melt down probably due to teething. After she calmed down, she did really well. Jo’s dad explained that she was doing better with the chewy tube and eating.
When we left, we had about a 30 minute drive back to my house. The time in between houses and the ride back to my house gives me a good time to ask questions about things dealing with Lauren's job. One of the questions I have been wondering about is when you are teaching a child do you pronounce every word correctly. Lauren explained that she tries to teach the correct way to say the word but also tries to match the dialect of the people around the child. So, if the parent has a country accent, she tries to talk somewhat the same way. This keeps the child from getting confused between what the speech therapist is teaching and what the parents are teaching. Lauren also told me about a test you have to take after completing college. This test determines if you will be able to practice speech therapy or not. She said this is one of the hardest test she had ever taken and that all of your schooling (pre-grad and grad school) is in this one test. We also got to talking about the differences between Speech Therapy (ST) Physical Therapy (PT) and Occupational Therapy (OT). I have been going with my sister to OT and PT so I have learned a little about what they do also. As Lauren and I were discussing the differences between the three of them, she brought some major things to my attention that I have never thought about before. First off all in PT, I would possibly have to work with adults. I don’t mind working with them it is just not what I really want to do. Also, I would have to lift people, sit people up, and help them stand. Depending on how much they weight, I could possibly drop them. I DO NOT want that responsibly; I would hate to have to explain to someone how I drop their mom or dad. I could go in to pediatric PT. They work mainly with kids, but they also work with kids wearing prosthetics. I’m not familiar with prosthetics and I am not sure if it is something I would enjoy doing. But it is something I would like to learn. Also in PT, you have to move around A LOT. You are always moving in some way. So if you ever pull a muscle, you are either going to have to put up with the pain or call in sick. This is definitely something to think about, seeing how I am twisting or pulling something about every two weeks. OT’s do a combination of physical and speech therapy and also life skills. Life skills include everything from writing your name, counting, teaching someone how to take a bath and wipe themselves. I have absolute NO desire to teach someone that. I think God has given certain people a gift and patience to teach life skills. I, however, do not think He has given me that gift. I am not sure if there is a pediatric OT job but that is something I want to look in to.
Lauren has been teaching me a lot and I am having a lot of fun. This I defiantly something I would consider doing in college.

Life of a Home Schooler.

Since I have been home schooled, people are always asking questions about my schooling. Some people are being noisy, some are rude and some are just curious. It is interesting to see how people react when they find out I am home school. Some act like I am strange and some act like they would love to know more. Since I have started high school, it seems that people are asking more and more questions. Some of the questions I get asked are, Do you like being home schooled?, Do you get to interact with other teens you age?, Do you do any school outside the house?, Can you get into college?, Do you have to do testing at the end of the year?, What kind of program do you use?, Do you school 8 hours a day?, Who grades your work?, and What do you do during the day?. Today I thought, I would answer some questions and also let you know what a typical school day is like for me.

The first qustion I will answer, is do I like being homeschooled? Yes, I do. When I was in 7th grade, I thought about going to public school. I even brought this idea to my parent's attention. After about a month of talking and praying about it, we came to the decision to home school for 7th grade and talk about it again the following year. I completed my 7th grade year with flying colors and then decided on my own, to stay with home schooling. To this day, I do not regret that decision. I am content where I am and I enjoy not waking up at 6am to ride the bus every weekday, and I enjoy being able to do school in my pj’s and on my bed. Being home schooled is also very versatile. If I do not do school on Monday then I can make it up on Saturday or on another day. Trust me I have schooled on Saturdays before because we took off a weekday to go somewhere or do something with family and friends.

As for the curriculum we use. Mom has used and uses many programs for schooling. One year we did SOS (Switch on Schoolhouse) which is a computer program. Personally, I did not enjoy it. But many people that I know have tried it and enjoy it. Also, one my my friends use the Abeka video schooling. All of her classes are on DVDS and she watches them everyday. I have never tried it, but she said she likes it. I like more textbook schooling which we are using now. Mom buys different curriculum from different companies. Some of the companies we have used are, Christian Liberty Press, Saxon, Developmental Math, Explode the Code, and many more. I have a certain amount of pages to read each day. Normally, I end each week with a test or quiz.

 I school about 6 hours a day sometimes more it just depends on the amount of work I have that day. I have, had homework before such has a essay being due or book that I have to read. Most of the time I schedule this into my school day so I do not have any. However, there is that occasional time where I have extra to do.

This brings me to my next mostly asked question, “Who grades my work?” . Well, the answer is my MOM does. In most cases, each curriculum comes with a tests and quizzes already written. Just like any other test you would take in public school, I read the directions and fill in the answer. But instead of turning the test into a classroom teacher, I give them to my mom. Then she gets the answer guide which also comes with the curriculum and marks the correct or wrong answers. She then calculates out my grade and gives me an A, B, C, D, or F. Yes, I have made a F before on a test like most people have done. When that happens, I have to study harder in that subject to raise my grade. I am also required to write essays, reports and also read certain books for high school and college. At the end of every semester mom must turn in my grades to “Home Life Academy”. This is a group that makes sure every home school child is doing the appropriate work for there grade and not just skimming by. Yes, there are people out there who say they are home schooling, yet they are not. We also do end of the year testing. By law we do not have to do it every year in elementary or middle school. In high school we are required to take SAT’s and ACT’s if we want to attend college.

Another question people seem to ask a lot is “Do you get to interact with other teens?”. Normally, the first way I think to answer this is, “Well nope I do not. I’m this talkative but my mom keeps my locked up at home and I have no friends.” I have never said this to anyone, yet. Most likely, they would take it the wrong way and actually think that it was true. But the honest answer to this question is, yes I do get to interact with teens my age. Most home school groups offer outings that you do with other home schoolers in your area. I was also in a literature club with about 8 teens and I do cooking classes with about 6 teens. Most people think the majority of my friends are also home school. This is not true, actually most of them go to public school. I have met them through friends, family, parents or on my own in some way.

The last question I will answer before closing this post is “Can home school students get into college?” The answer to this is yes we can. I have already started preparing for college. I am also trying to figure out what profession I want to study and what college I would like to attend. I’m so excited for my high school years and seeing what God has in store for me. I hope you have found this post informative and it has answered some of the questions you might have been wondering about homeschooling.

Shadowing a Speach Therpist (week one)

11/10/10
Today I went with our speech therapist, Lauren. She picked me up at our house around 9am so I could shadow her for the day. We saw a total of 7 kids. When we first left, Lauren briefly explained what problems each child had and what kind of things she was using to help with the problems.
The first kid we saw was Jo she is 2 ½, has poor muscle control and is also hypo sensitive. Lauren is using, hot, cold and vibrating teething rings and is also using different textures and tempters of food. Lauren is also teaching Jo stem sounds, stem sounds are vowel sounds, like A, E I, O, U, that babies and children make before learning to talk. It was interesting to see how Lauren worked with a younger child instead of my sister, who I am used to seeing her work with.
After there, Lauren explained that the next kid we were seeing was almost 3 and had some speech delays. When we arrived, I met a very energetic little boy named Rob. Lauren worked on stem sounds, let him blow bubbles to strengthen his mouth muscles and had him request certain items. It was intriguing to see how different it was to work with a more active child then one who sits still.
When we left there, we visited a 8 year old boy named Dev who is on a tracheal tube. Lauren told me Dev has SMA, which is spinal muscular atrophy. He can shrug his shoulders and slightly raise his eyebrows. Dev is also using a dynavox with eye gaze system because He can not push buttons. He had just fallen asleep before we arrived so Lauren talked to his nurse about how he was doing and how his day had been.
When we left there, we saw a 16 month little boy name C. He has some speech delays, is not walking yet but he does scoot across the floor. C also has some chewing delays and aspirates on thin liquids. He was also asleep when we arrived; so, Lauren dropped off a chewy tube to help with his eating and checked to see how he was doing on the liquid thickener she had prescribed earlier in the week.
Next, we went to a daycare in our area to see El a 2 year old little girl. El was defiantly one of my favorites of the day. She had been labeled failure to thrive as a baby, is small for her age and has some speech delays. She is super quiet but is very adorable. Lauren is working on requesting, saying things like, bubbles, open, close, no, yes, book, etc. El is also using the Chewy tube to help her with her mouth muscles. I will say working in a day care with a child is much harder then going to the child’s house. It is a lot louder, distracting and you have to listen very closely when the child speaks.
After we left there, we went to Lauren’s office. She showed me how to write a brief summery in each child’s folder and how to get things ready for the next kid. The next kid that we saw came to the office. Ad is a 10 year old boy who has autism. Lauren is working on taking turns and sound cards with him. While he was there, Ad threw a fit. It was interesting to see how Lauren deals with fit throwing and it was also a good learning experience for me. After Ad left, a 7 year old boy named Tim came in. Tim also has autism, he worked on sequencing cards and a “following direction” work sheet. He was a very talkative and a very sweet little boy.
I really enjoyed my trip with Lauren, She taught me about the 2 different kinds of chewy tubes, how to write a summery of the kids therapy session and what a liquid thinker is. I can't wait to go again and learn more. It was defiantly a great learning experience that I will never forget.

(Due to the confidentiality of the children their names have been change.)