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Imitation

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AYAZ AHMAD KHAN
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5 views6 pages

Imitation

Uploaded by

AYAZ AHMAD KHAN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Imitation... It's a Game Changer!

Last year a mom sent me a video of her little boy that made me squeal out loud.
In the video, there was one of my little friends who was nonverbal for a long,
long time, happily swinging while his mom pushed him as she modeled family
names for him.

And guess what???

To my utter amazement, he imitated his own version of every single one of


those names!

She said, "Mama."

He said, "Mama."

She said, "Dada."

He said, "Dada."

She said, "Pappaw."

He said, "Pappaw."

She said, "Granny."

He said, "Nanny."
She said, "Mimi."

He said, "Mimi."

She said, "Mimi's house."

He said, "Mimi how."

She said, "Lydia.

He said, "Ee - ya."

IT WAS SUCH A PLEASANT SURPRISE!


Honestly, I shouldn't be surprised at all because this is how it always happens...
When we work on the right things, language development unfolds before
our very eyes.

For this little guy, it started about this time last year by getting his ear issues
treated. Turns out, he could hear next to NOTHING due to chronic fluid in both
middle ears that his little body just couldn't handle.
Because of that, he was saying NOTHING too.
After receiving tubes, he did begin to babble a little more, but we noticed that
he still wasn't super engaged with us.... not lots of eye contact or sustained joint
attention. He did "his own thing" lots of the time.

Unfortunately, his engagement did not improve with his newfound ability to
hear clearly.
After some intentional focus, he did start following more verbal commands
related to his every day routines, but it was still difficult to get him to look at us
or stay with any activity that wasn't his idea.
We had to work on eye contact, joint attention, turn taking, and helping
him learn that interacting with us would be worth his while. With games like
Patty Cake, 1-2-3 Jump, Ready-Set-Go as we pushed chairs (yes, chairs!) across
my therapy room, and The Night Night Game (his favorite!), he learned to look
at us and play together.
Then we moved to teaching him to imitate actions during play with toys.
The challenge with this little guy wasn't what to do while playing since he likes
toys and knows how to play, but watching us long enough to do what we do.
Instead of doing his own thing, we wanted him to allow us to join him and
(sometimes!) direct the play by modeling fun things to do together.
If we beat the drum with a drumstick, he could beat the drum too.
As we put a hat on Mr. Potato Head, he put a hat on Mr. Potato Head.
When we fed the baby doll with a bottle and spoon, he could do that too.
Next, we moved to imitating more of our body movements during play. As we
jumped from carpet circle to carpet circle or marched around the room, he
began to jump and march too.
We then added some "sounds" to our little games. For example, he loved to put
both hands on a balloon or ball and shake his head from side-to-side, (a self-
stim for sure), but I decided to try to use it! Every time he did this, I began to
say a throaty, “Ahhhhh!”

At first, he didn’t seem to notice. During the next session or two, he began
to look at me in anticipation as he put his hands on the balloon to watch and
listen for me to say, “Ahhhh!” I waited until he made eye contact before I said it
to teach him to watch me.
The next time we met, after playing this game once or twice, I began to pause
and use expectant waiting cues of leaning forward with wide eyes as if to
say, “It’s your turn to talk.”
After a few times, he began to chime in with a quiet, breathy-sounding “Ah” as
he shook his head, which became louder and stronger with practice throughout
the next few sessions.
Since this worked so well, I added a new part to our game by throwing the
balloon in the air and enthusiastically modeling, “Up!” and then a long, drawn-
out, melodic version of “up” which
sounded more like, “Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhuuuuup.”
He began to approximate this by saying, “Uh.” At first, it was just once or twice
each time during the five minutes or so we played with balloons. We continued
this in several mini-bursts throughout the session.
He steadily increased to the point where he said these two different
vocalizations every time we played with balloons. Then balls. And even
bubbles.
Then, a couple of weeks later, at home, he began to clearly say the word “up”
(with a beautiful final /p/) as he played with things he could throw, and for the
best part, as a request for his parents to get up to help him.
That's where he was when I last saw him a few weeks ago.

And then yesterday, I received that awesome video of him imitating


EVERY SINGLE WORD his mom said.
At 34 months, this little guy still has a long way to go for sure, but you know
what?
He is getting there.
It took some work, some sweat, and some sheer determination by his parents,
but he is now talking and it is the sweetest music to all our ears!
If you're out there working with a child and it's not happening for you yet, do
not give up! Keep going! This is the formula research and my own personal
experience tells us WORKS:

1. Get a kid to interact with you consistently. We want to see a child


make eye contact, participate in play with toys and games with you, and
respond to you, even without words. If this is a problem, try the strategies
and games in Teach Me To Play WITH You to get this important first
step going. You won't hear words without it!

2. Help him learn to follow directions consistently during every day


routines to "do his part." When kids understand more words, they do more
and eventually, say more. Teach Me To Talk: The Therapy Manual outlines
both receptive language (the comprehension piece) and expressive language
(communicating with words, gestures, or signs) and is an excellent resource
filled with goals and activities to teach young children with language delays
what to understand and say.

3. Teach him to imitate actions and gestures during play with toys. We can't
expect a nonverbal kid to imitate words until he knows how to imitate easier
things you do - like copying you with a toy, performing hand motions with
songs, or waving bye-bye and blowing kisses. There are actually 8 levels of
imitation - 5 before we get to talking and saying "words."' In Building Verbal
Imitation in Toddlers, you walk through those 8 levels all the way up to words
and phrases. When a child is a late talker (and all other skills are coming along
fine), then this book is your best way to get language going!

4. Add some sounds and "expected" words to accompany those games, and
then...

5. Words will come.


I hope this inspires you today!
It did me!!
Blessings to you!

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