Yay, Finally!

I had a really comical speech session with J320 this morning.

J320 is a crazy, extremely lovable kid. (I can't imagine what life at home must be like.) Not enough words could describe this kiddo; you just have to be there to get the full effect. He is what we might consider high maintenance; one must always keep an eye on him or else he will get into trouble! I often come home with stories about him and find myself echoing some of his unintelligible speech.

For instance, he often says, "shoshofee." None of us knew what that meant until last week, when I had a breakthrough J320-interpretative moment. I asked him a function match-up question, "What do you wear on your feet?" He spat out, "shoshofee!" I had a sudden revelation/J320 interpretation! He means, "shoes on feet!" Which totally makes sense b/c he likes to take his shoes off...so what do adults constantly tell him? "Put your shoes on your feet!"

Fast forward to today's session -- too bad I can't remember everything about our session that had me ROFL. I do remember that at one point, when I was delivering his reinforcer (a food item), it went like this:

Me: What do you want? Sausage, pancake, or strawberry?
J320: I want strawberry please. [Only, he is not as intelligible and he speaks in "chunks" so it comes out more like, "Iwanstrabewyplee!" but I was thrilled that he used "all his words" without a prompt.]
Me: Oh, good asking! Here you go...
J320: Yay.

I was like, WHAT?! Did he really say, "yay"?? If he did and he meant it, then shoot, I should have packed my bags and called it day! It would be an appropriate, social comment!

Then when speech time was over, I said, "Ok, take your breakfast and go to the table to finish." He stood up and picked his tray up and impulsively grabbed a strawberry to stuff in his mouth. I stopped him and said, "Wait. First bring your breakfast to that table and then you can eat." He followed through with the two-step direction, so I was thrilled (we are also working on the "wait" concept b/c he can be quite impulsive). As he approached the table, one of the paraeducators asked, "All done with speech?"

J320 says, "Finally." We were dying! (Sometimes, we carry on conversations with the kiddos as if they are typically developing. And sometimes the things that the kids respond with makes us wonder if they get the best of us!)

This is probably one of those 'you had to be there sessions.' Never a dull moment at Little Kid School, especially on Mondays and Fridays.