WAKE UP WOO!

of Trevor Rhoda 's speech therapy...



Trevor wheels himself over to the table, locks his breaks and begins to wipe off the table. Michelle, the speech therapist, asks, "Trevor, aren't you going to give me some kind of greeting? Awkward silence. Michelle then suggests, "Hello? Be quiet? Go to-?" Trevor replies, "church." Not exactly what she was looking for, but hey, we'll take it! Most people would probably finish that phrase with 'hell,' but Trevor went with 'church' instead.

The therapist then tells Trevor to say the months of the year. He starts with, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday." She then helps him by saying, "January, February-?" He responds with "July, August, September, November." For a third attempt, he says, "January, March, April, September, November, December." Then he gets all of them right, just forgetting October.

Next, she wanted him to count from one to 50. He began with "March, April, May" followed by "29, 10, 30 (pronounced 'thitty'), 31 (pronounced 'thitty-one'), thitty-two, thitty-seven, 60" then, "50, thitty, thitty, thitty" and then finally successfully counted from one to 50 with little clues from the therapist. Trevor is awesome. His progression absolutely astonishes me.

The therapist talked about how Trevor needs to find the balance between automatic and accurate speech. Everything that he says is really automatic, such as finishing the phrase "go to" with "church," or reciting the months of the year. But what he needs to work on is making sure he's saying things correctly, not just listing off whatever flies from the back of his head. To me, it's really similar to a toddler reciting the alphabet, where they maybe can't decipher from letter to letter, combining LMNOP into one word, but they have the entire song memorized. That's pretty much how Trevor is communicating right now, if you can call it communicating, that is...

Trevor was able to place cards in numerical order from two to seven. He couldn't distinguish between red and black. But all of the sudden some sort of genius power switch turned on and he was able to turn over the numbers she told him to, follow basic commands with few errors and even hand her the cards in the specific order she told him to. Yup, I'm pretty sure he's actually fine, just trying to trick us and stress us all out for a few months.

The therapist held up picture cards and had Trevor describe what was going on. The picture to the left is the first one she held up. He noticed the short shorts and then shouted, "Whoa, no!!," shoved it back at the therapist and moved on to the next one.

She held up a picture of someone washing dishes and asked Trevor what was going on. He said, "jelly." She cued, "washing off the-?" He replied, "cable" and then after a little help, said, "dish."

She then held up a picture of someone playing cards. He said, "pancakes" and then "blueberries" and then "lawn mower." She asked what the person was holding. He replied, "cereal," laughed, and then said "pancakes" and "peanut butter." She cued, "playing-?" He replied, "dice" then "cards" then "pancakes" and finally, "playing cards."

Next was a picture of someone washing their hands. He said, "pancakes" of course. She told him to fix it. He said, "pancakes" and then "laying down" and then "brushing" and then "washing." She helped with, "washing what-?" He replied "chairs" and then laughed. The therapist asked, "washing hands with-?" He said "soap!" She asked him to repeat, "washing hands with-?" He said "hope."

For the picture of someone digging in the dirt with a shovel, he said, "shoveling the sidewalk" right off the bat. Fantastic!!

The best part of Trevor's speech therapy went exactly as follows:

For a picture of a lady playing the piano...

Trevor: Soft bed
Michelle: Pi-?
Trevor: Penis [laughs hysterically]
Michelle: She's looking at the-?
Trevor: Penis [laughs again]
Michelle: Mus-?
Trevor: Museum, music

And then for a picture of a man playing the guitar...

Trevor: Penis, bandaid, penis
Michelle: Playing the-?
Trevor: Piano, guitar

Yup, I might have a middle-school sense of humor, but that was hilarious. I really hope the word 'penis' doesn't get stuck in Trevor's head for the rest of his life. On the other hand, maybe it would brighten things up a little...