So…what’s going on with Dar here on Waaambulance Wednesday? Well, the BUSD has a week off between regular sesh and summer sesh. Making this an appropriate time to tell you about the stuff that wifey and I are supposed to work on with him, every day. You know how you hang out with your four-year-old and wait for them to say cute stuff and then post it on facebook? Yeah, we don’t do that. We work instead. You know how when you go to the gym you work on core, then quads, then laterals? Okay, I actually don’t know what any of that means. My point is: Dar has a work routine. Which means we do too.
Intraverbal means fill in the blanks. I say something, he’s supposed to say something else. Here’s what I say, followed in parentheses by what he’s supposed to say.
A cat says ______ (meow-meow, we accept ma-ma)
A dog says ______ (bark, we accept bah)
A snake says ______ (ssssss)
A sheep says ______ (ba-ba)
An owl says ______ (whoo-whoo)
A horse says ______ (neigh-neigh)
A bird says ______ (tweet-tweet, we accept tee-tee)
A duck says ______ (quack-quack, we accept ck-ck)
A cow says ______ (moo-moo)
A car says ______ (beep-beep, we accept bee-bee)
You sleep in a ______ (bed, we accept beh)
You play with ______ (toys, we accept tuh)
You eat ______ (o’s)
You drink ______ (juice, we accept juu)
You ride a ______ (bike, we accept bih)
What is your name? ______ (Dar, we accept Dah)
You are my ______ (sunshine, we accept duh-duh)
…my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are ______ (grey, we accept geh)
Mary had a little lamb, his fleece was white as ______ (snow, we accept no)
…and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to ______ (go)
The itsy bitsy spider ______ (climbs, we accept kun)
…up the water ______ (spout, we accept puh)
…down came the rain and washed the spider ______ (out, we accept uh)
Twinkle, twinkle little ______ (star, we accept tah)
…how I wonder what you ______ (are, we accept ah)
…up above the world so ______ (hi)
There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-______ (oh), [repeat as possible…]
…and Bingo was his name-______ (oh)
We also do the ABC song, but that hits and misses.
Pretend play means he plays with something, usually a toy, like it represents something. I should precede this with “Let’s pretend!”
Horse running: Dar should make toy walk and make neigh-neigh sound
Bird flying: Dar should lift bird toy in air and make tweet-tweet sound
Eating: Dar should bring play food to his mouth and go mmmmmmm
Feed animal: Dar should stir spoon in cup and put spoon to play animal’s mouth
Car driving: Dar should roll car and make beep-beep sound
Cat walking: Dar should make cat walk and make meow-meow sound
Snake slithering: Dar should move snake and go ssssssssssss
Building: Dar should hit pound-a-peg with hammer and make bang-bang sound
Echoics means he repeats after me. I say “Say…” ____ and he’s supposed to say it. (We make sure to include the “say” in this exercise because we don’t want him just repeating everything we utter. Not that this has been any kind of problem.)
Ah
Mama
Baba
Muh
Puh
Kuh
Guh
Nuh
Tuh
Kah
Tah
Ha
Da
Dee
Dee-dee
Sss
Shhh
Mmm
“T” sound
Oh
Oo
Knee
Ay (long “A”)
Zee
Bee
Ee
Me
Moo
Boo
Oh-no
My
Eye
Dar
No-no
Duh
Buh
And other exercises…with shapes, colors, books, chalk, crayons, goo, bubbles, music, what-have-you. (What have you?) But the above list is the stuff we can practice in the car, in a supermarket, or any old time. So…you might ask…how’s Dar doing on all this? Sometimes he’ll get ten of these in a row and I’ll think, wow, he really does remember things. But it always comes back to the problem that he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t always hit ten in a row, but if he does, all of them sound like a sullen teenager who wants this all to be over as soon as possible. What do NBA coaches say? You can’t teach desire. There’s no moral to this story. I guess there never is much of one. It is what it is, and, much more importantly, it isn’t what it isn’t.
