Tuesdays with Lauren: LAST post of series

Doesn't she look GREAT?  This was at the end of our session and she was TIRED but look at that smile...if you are an SLP, you will also notice that her left side weakness is improving nicely as we have an almost FULL smile here. Her dad was on the side making her LAUGH by saying "Blake Shelton." :)

Oh, hey...did you catch that?????? I said she LAUGHED. 

Yes! Yes! Yes! Lauren is laughing. We don't always get voicing but mom reports that she is watching more T.V and that she is laughing appropriately.  

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I'll tell you, I don't think I'VE laughed as hard as I did, with Lauren, on Tuesday. Her entire body gets going with the laugh...NO SOUND...but the facial expression, timing and body shakes are there and well, it's FUNNY. 

So...we laughed.

A LOT

I am stockpiling jokes for our next visit which may a bit selfish because I want to laugh that hard again. In all seriousness though using jokes, riddles and puns in our treatment meets many of the goals we are working toward so it's a win/win. Jokes are  great therapy for language comprehension, processing and of course all of those facial muscles used to do it. It also is a very natural,  automatic vocalization which will hopefully encourage more vocalizing overall. 

Oh, HEY. Did you catch that also?  I said OUR NEXT VISIT. I'm so happy to tell you all that Lauren's family has asked me to stay on as one of her therapists  because they like what I've done with her. I'm OVERJOYED and excited because I have SO many ideas and I think Lauren really responds to my crazy, outside of the box therapy ideas...

We WILL have to agree to disagree on one thing though...

She is a BEARS fan and I'm a PACKERS FAN.

How did we find this out?  Well, you can see in the picture that she has a Chicago shirt on so I asked her "are you a Cubs fan?"  She SAID "yes."  Then she proceeded to spell out "I love the Bears too."  I feigned disgust, as any self respecting Packer fan would do, and she proceeded to spell out "you like the Pack?" (complete with her own disgusted facial expression).

Ah, a match made in heaven.  I can't wait to show up in my cheese head next week....

Keep an eye out because we are taking our therapy "to the streets."  I have some community outings planned to assist Lauren with using her newly acquired skills in more functional settings.  So, if you see us out and about be sure to stop and say "hi", tell a joke or tell her  you've been reading about her.  She would love that. 



As always, thank you for reading and sharing my blog.  I'd like to ask now that you go to www.missionsmallbusiness and vote for Therapy and Learning Services, Inc. I'm trying to win one of several $250,000 grants to start a program for families like the Pokutas who need a little help with therapy funding during periods of insurance lags.  THANK YOU for helping!


Jen