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From: Lynne Shields
Date: 18 Oct 2010
Time: 13:06:50 -0500
Remote Name: 68.188.68.2
Lauren, I don't necessarily begin with tangible rewards with young children, unless they appear to be needed--as you said, it truly depends on the child and/or adult with whom I am working. If a child responds well to social rewards--a high five, a smile, etc., then a tangible reward is not necessary. I tend to begin with tangibles when a child or adult clearly is not able to see the positive things they are accomplishing. For example, we worked with a five year old who was not really very aware of his disfluencies and who was more disfluent in conversataion, in part, because he tended to jump in to begin talking before he had really thought out what he wanted to say. So, we (the student clinician and I) modeled by saying before our talking turns, "Hmmmm." or "Let me think about that...". When he began doing the same, or pausing prior to his talking turns, we commented, "You took some thinking time", or "thanks for taking time before your turn". If he smiled or said, "yeah, I did", we knew he recognized his accomplishment. No tangible rewards were needed for him, as he enjoyed the verbal comments, and soon began to notice them himself. When we are monitoring a child, I encourage the parents to focus on the fluency facilitating behaviors that I observed during the parent-child observations that I do as part of our assessment protocol. So, if a parent is a good listener, giving their child time to finish their utterances, I point that out as a great fluency facilitator, and encourage them to continue to do that. If a parent has noticed that their child interrupts or is interrupted quite a lot at home, I talk with them about ways that they feel this can be managed at home. I develop a simple charting system with them, that can be used for a quick fluency rating at the end of each day, and we discuss that data when I speak with the parents on the phone every few weeks. It is important to validate what the parent is doing to help their child, and for the observations that they share with me during these conversations. Hope this is helpful, and that I answered your questions. Thanks for reading my nugget! Lynne