Dear C.R.,
Here are three principles to get you started: Use everyday communication opportunities for enriching Christopher’s language development; start right where Christopher is now, and show him the ropes.
All of your daily routines with Christopher are therapeutic opportunities. Dressing, meal times, your household activities and errands are all things to talk about. Be sure to include at least one or two story times each day. (As for any child, you can simplify by re-wording parts he may not understand at first, and by repeating.) I would emphasize high-quality language input for now, and let the professionals work more directly with Christopher’s expression when he gets into formal treatment.
It sounds like Christopher is at the one-word stage, so you want to begin there. Be a model for old and new one-word utterances which he could use in the situation. "Shirt. On! Socks. On!" And you can expand a little to the next stage: "Red shirt. Nice shirt, Christopher. Nice job!" Be sure that all your conversation with him includes the modeling of some things he could be using now, or soon.
Showing Christopher the ropes means that you give him extra opportunities to learn how language works. (If Christopher were going to learn from the standard amount of stimulation, that would have happened by now.) You are going to give him an extra, explicit focus. So repeat your model, in a conversational tone of voice, two or three times: "Red. RED. Red!" S-t-r-e-t-c-h out your sounds and syllables, making it all take longer; and emphasize the consonant sounds that you cannot stretch: RrrrrreeeeeD. In other words, make things more obvious. And repeat what he has said, or tried to say, so that he gets affirmation when he is on the right track.
Best Wishes,
Ruth Alice Jurey, M.S.
Speech/Language Pathologist
