I see, hear, smell, Jump(ed), Drop(ped), In, On, Under

We are practicing tense with Heidi.

I hold a toy and jump it over an object and then say “The toy jumped“

Or I drop a toy and say “I dropped it”

Our focus words are ‘jumped’ and ‘dropped’ and it has been fun trying to emphasis the ‘ed’ on the end without making it into two words.

Toys of choice are the highly motivating “Fisher Price Little People” in this case her cars: “Eddy jumped the car” or “the car jumped Eddy”

I noticed over the last few months that Heidi will get see, hear and smell confused. Examples:

In an underground carpark where our voices echoed “I see my voice”
Standing next to the front door ready to leave “I smell the door”

So we’ve been playing with a sound effects game, listening to a sound on the CD and then finding the matching picture

eg play sound of toilet flushing
“I hear flushing”

And use the ‘hear’ sign of a hand cupping the ear to reinforce the verbal cue.

(picture thanks to PictureSET who have some great visual aides available free of charge)

point to the picture
“I see flushing”

And point my finger from my eye to the picture to reinforce the verbal cue.

This has worked amazingly well.

Smell we play with during meal times (naturally) and when the girls are helping me to cook – hold item of food to our noses for example vegemite “I smell vegemite”.

We’ve now almost got ’see, hear and smell’ sorted out although Heidi will still get them confused if she is very excited or distracted.

In, On and Under came to our attention during a recent speech therapy session.  We thought Heidi had these under control but while doing a test she got shown two pictures, one was a hat under a chair, the other was a hat on a chair.

The speech therapist pointed to the first picture and said “the hat is under the chair”.

Then the therapist pointed to the second picture and said “the hat is?”

Heidi answered “the hat is up the chair”

So with the help of our highly motivating Fisher Price Little People we are practicing “In, On and Under”.  “Mummy is in the house”. “Mummy is on the house”. “Mummy is under the house”

A wonderful friend in the states is sending me a parcel of assorted Rubber Ducks and I’m really looking forward to having some new highly motivating toys for Heidi’s speech therapy.  All these things only work for as long as Heidi is interested in playing the game and she is more interested and plays for longer when there is a higher motivational factor. And lets be honest how could a Rubber Ducky Nativity not be highly motivating

And this proud Mummy thinks that for 3 and a bit years old Heidi is doing pretty damn good.