Lesson 107


Lesson 107
Book
Attaching Meaning to the Pattern of Sounds
in Daily Routines


     

     

Objectives

To teach your child to

a) associate meaning to patterns of meaningful speech sounds during daily routines
b) begin recognizing a sound pattern and using it for meaningful communication

Points To Remember

1. Children need to practice skills they have learned in a structured activity during daily routines. This will help them understand and use the sound patterns meaningfully for communication

2. Use daily routines that the child is always involved in, such as snack or meal time, getting dressed, brushing teeth etc.

3. Always give the child the opportunity to use the sound pattern

4. Remember that for young children, sound patterns may actually consist of sounds, but for older children the sound patterns can be short phrases or words that have a specific intonation pattern.

Method

This is an unstructured activity. We will use snack time as an example. Even though it is unstructured, you will still set up an auditory routine. Watch the two videoclips to see examples of teaching a child to attach meaning to the patterns of sounds and appropriate responses during snack time and while making a drink.

Then read and follow the instructions given below.

1. Choose 2-3 snack items that your child likes to eat. Decide what sound patterns you will use for each. If you want, you can even make up a jingle for each one.

2. Next, use conversational language to talk to your child about what you have for snack and ask him what he wants. If you need to, use the ‘Listen!’ cue and repeat the choices verbally.

3. Give your child an opportunity to request one of the items.

4. Your child may not say the correct sound pattern for the item, but reinforce and respond to his attempt. Give him the a little of the item that most closely matches what his vocalization sounded like.

5. If this is what your child actually wanted, he will eat it. Wait for him to finish, then give him all the choices again by saying “ do you want __________, _________ or __________?” using the sound pattern for each item.

6. Again, when he vocalizes, give him a little of the item whose sound pattern sounds most like what your child said.

5. Continue steps 2-6 until he’s eaten enough. Then use the phrase “ We’re all finished!” or ‘All done!’ so that he will begin to understand this phrase.

Video Clips

CLIP 1





CLIP 2




Modifications

For children who are 4 and older, The sound patterns should be couched into phrases like those used in the second videoclip. Older children can also learn additional sound patterns during your daily routine activities such as washing dishes, folding clothes etc.

Taking a bath is a daily routine that has a tremendous potential for learning language. However, remember that your child needs to take off his implant or hearing aids to take a bath. The way to use bath time for language learning is to talk about the bath and use your sound patterns with a small bath tub before actually taking a bath. Then take off your child’s implant/hearing aids and let him take a bath as usual. Put them back on as soon as he is dry.

Children who begin this process when they are older than five will need more age appropriate sound patterns that include phrases and language related to basic concepts as well. However, they still need to go through the phase of understanding patterns before they will understand words and phrases.

What Next

1. When you are comfortable using sound patterns for one daily routine, follow the same steps with all the daily routines you do with your child. You must continue the device check (Lesson 101) and the daily hearing check using the Ling six sound test (Lesson 104) every day.

2. Continue Lessons 105 and 106 while doing lesson 107. You should be doing all these activities throughout your day, in addition to at least two half-hour periods of structured activities for a child upto 2 years of age. For children between 2-3 you should be able to two blocks of about 45 minutes of structured activities. For children 3 and older, make sure you do at least one hour of structured practice daily. Each child is different, so these times will vary a little based on your child.
The rest of the time, your child should be learning through your daily routine activities.