Monday, November 8, 2010

First ECI Visit

Today was Karys's first ECI visit to start working on improving her speech. It went so well!! I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I knew I was happy that the woman that will be working with her is someone I used to know. Having known her in the past and what a fun person she is made me know things today would be great.

The great thing about ECI is that they come to your house to work and I think that helps Karys be more comfortable. She had no problems doing anything she was asked to do and warmed up to Becca (her therapist) pretty immediately. At this first appointment, Becca brought Karys a little mirror that we are supposed to use to work on imitating words. When Becca would use it, she would act like she was watching herself say a word in the mirror and then ask Karys to copy it. Every time Karys would do whatever she was asked. And I could tell she was really trying hard to copy Becca. She also gave Karys some picture cards that we're supposed to work on. They're all common words and we're supposed to work on making the words sound like they're supposed to and then using those words to start putting words together. For example, I'm supposed to be asking her object function questions. Instead of saying, "What is this?" for a picture of a car, I should ask her something like, "What does Mommy drive?" in hopes that she'll eventually say something like "Drive car."

I bought a notebook today so that I could take notes of everything we're supposed to work on between now and her next appointment in two weeks. Here's what we're going to start with:
*Associating long vowel sounds with words to get her to start using vowels in her words
*Have her drink out of a straw more often
*Practice clicking her tongue
*Use the mirror to practice words she's highly successful with so she can see what her mouth is supposed to do

I can't wait to see how much she improves as time goes on. :)

3 comments:

Mike and Erin said...

Cool! Sounds like a really great therapist. I liked the lady that came to our house when Ezra started speech therapy at 2, but she didn't do hardly any of that stuff. To her credit, she was trying to work in occupational therapy with Ezra as well. Currently, Ezra is still in OT, but no longer needs speech. It's so exciting when you begin to see success! I'm sure it won't take long for Karys to catch up to age appropriate speech!

Mer said...

So glad it's GOING WELL!!!!! She's so cute...and she'll be telling everyone so before you know it!

Jennifer said...

Becca is wonderful. She was Elizabeth's ECI therapist too! Way to go on note taking, I just referred to the yellow sheets. Slacker me.

About Me

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I've been a wife for over seven years, a mommy of one for 2 and a half years, and a mommy of two as of 12/28/10! :) I married Ryan on July 26, 2003. We always said we wanted to have kids sometime around our fifth anniversary. The closer that time came, the more we started thinking we still needed another year. However, God held us to our original plan because Karys Elizabeth was born July 30, 2008...4 days after our 5th anniversary. :) I quit my job teaching kindergarten to take on the much more rewarding "career" of stay-at-home mom. There are some days that are hard, but I love it just the same. God surprised us again in May 2010 when we found out we were having baby #2. I went through the entire pregnancy expecting him to go past his January 9, 2011 due date since his sister was overdue. However, Zane Elliott surprised us by making his debut on December 28, 2010, and we wouldn't have it any other way! Now that we have "one of each" we could be "done" with our family, but hopefully that won't be the case. :)