There are a variety of ways to provide speech therapy to patients, and in home health we often see a little creativity go a long way. One of the joys of being in the child’s home is that fun and creative therapy often make the child more comfortable, allowing them to pick up on things more quickly. A perfect example of this is Rebecca Pugh, KCT STA doing therapy with her patient Eder with his baby lamb.
Eder, a ten year old patient who has a severe language delay, has been working on using a Dynavox to communicate, because his speech is unintelligible to the average listener. With a Dynavox, which is a device that allows the patient to point to items which will then be pronounced through the device, Eder will be able to convey his needs to unfamiliar listeners. Of course, this is a temporary fix, as speech therapy is also working on slow speech production and producing consonants clearly in order for him to be able speak on his own.
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While Eder has been receiving speech therapy for almost eight months, lately he has been having a hard time focusing on his speech sessions. One session in particular was starting out exceptionally tough, and it didn’t help that Eder’s twin sisters were heading outside to feed their new baby lambs. Since Rebecca knew the session wouldn’t progress with Eder wanting to be outside with his sisters, she packed up her stuff and they both headed outside to try an unconventional type of therapy for the day.
Outside, after finally corralling a little lamb, Eder began bottle feeding her. He quickly became calm and joyful from feeding the lamb, so Rebecca started right in on their therapy, asking him to repeat his target words. His newfound distraction provided the perfect opportunity for him to focus and cooperate for the rest of their time together.
Rebecca says she and Eder will definitely do their therapy with the lambs again, and hopes that therapy may be something Eder looks forward to in the future if she continues to provide it in unique ways!
