Kids Say the BEST Things - Ep. 75
Don’t we hear some of the funniest, wisest, all around best things from children? Here’s a collection of some my funniest moments with clients in 2022. Enjoy Kids Say the BEST Things, 2022.
--- Useful Links ---
Federal Appeals Court Upholds College Degree Requirement for Child Care Staff
Pediatric Voice Therapy - Not a Foreign Country After All
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission
Transcript
Denise: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the final episode of 2022. This is the 75th episode of The Speech Umbrella, and I couldn't have come this far without you. So thanks for listening. Since it's Christmas time and most of us are taking a break, the last thing we want to do is think about work. But we SLPs are always up for funny stories about what kids say. So that's what this episode will be, it will be short and sweet and hopefully make you chuckle.
No one likes an overexplained joke, and I don't want to belabor these experiences, but some of them are all the more wonderful if I give you a bit of background and some of them need no further explanation. So without further ado, here's episode 75 of The Speech Umbrella, Kids Say the Best Things 2022.
Sit back and enjoy. My first story is about Sam, who was featured in episode 73 about pediatric voice therapy. And if you didn't catch that episode or don't recall the details, here's a bit about him. Sam is learning to use phonation to power his voice. And to that end whenever we play ball, which he loves, he is the ball chaser because big physical movements help him get his breath going.
He's also learning to combine words. When he started seeing me, he was able to say only just a few single words, but he's come a long way. And he is also on the autism spectrum. So the other day we were playing ball and it rolled into a corner. I pointed to it and told him to get it. Sam just looked at me and said with perfect 'I'm so done with this' intonation. "You get it." He was on to me. What makes this so fun is his word choice, facial expression, and prosody were so spot on. This from a kid with autism.
Now the next two quotes are from a client I have also featured. She's the Maria in episode 45, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Maria has a marvelous imagination. She always knows her own mind and is on the autism spectrum. And this has led to quite a few funny moments. One day this summer, she came striding into the therapy room.
By the way you always know when Marie enters the room. And announced, "Miss Denise, you need to get married." She was quite surprised when I told her I was married and had three children. She wanted to know where they were. Then I showed her a picture of my oldest child when he was eight and explained that he has grown now and no longer lives at home.
And you could see the wheels turning in her head as she processed the idea of kids growing up and getting big like their parents. The whole concept of the passage of time seemed to flower in her mind then and there. And Maria declared that she was going to take care of her mom when she grew up.
Here's another Maria moment. She was playing with a doll house and dolls. The scene she invented was about someone dying. Maria surveyed the doll furniture. Then she turned to me and said, "we need a dying bed." And that's the best description of a coffin I've ever heard.
The next story requires some explanation. That morning, I had read about a licensing requirement for Washington DC daycare workers, requiring all childcare professionals to have a college degree. And the judges defended their decision as follows, quote: "even if some elective courses might have limited relevance to aspiring childcare workers, a variety of courses outside the early childhood major could be beneficial to someone tasked with the educational development of toddlers, as any adult who has been flummoxed by a two-year-old repeatedly asking why can attest." End of quote. Well, I decided to pay attention that day to just what kind of why questions my preschool clients asked, and see if a college degree was really needed to help in answering them. My very first client of the day was an extremely bright four year old child. He was in speech therapy only because of a motor speech delay. No language delay. Very bright. To give you an idea of his impressive cognitive ability, he once recited for me a scripture verse he had memorized. Now, his mom told me he memorized this while he was rolling around on the floor as his older siblings were committing it to memory. She had no idea he also memorized it.
Well, I looked this up later and I counted the words, that scripture was 99 words long. And he got every word. And he's not on the autism spectrum, by the way. So knowing how bright he was, I thought his questions would be the litmus test for whether you need a college degree to answer preschooler's why questions. He was playing with a balloon car toy, which has a pump that inflates the balloon and the pump has eyes and mouth stickers. He studied the pump and then asked why it had a face. I have a college degree and I couldn't answer that one. Then I had to tell his mom why I was laughing so hard and we enjoyed the laugh together.
The last two stories are about David and he appears in episodes 25, 26, 27 and 28. He's on the autism spectrum and his language has grown exponentially as I've been using an approach for gestalt language processors with him. I think you'll agree, I saved the best for last. I have a toy barn that David loves to play with.
But he doesn't like the fact that I've never put batteries in it because I don't want that noise. Some of my clients are auditory sensory seekers, and David certainly is and would never get past the barn noise in therapy. Every time we have the barn out, though, he inquires about the batteries and I tell him I want a quiet barn. Finally one day he said, emphatically, "it's not a funeral. It's a barn!"
Okay. Here's my last story, also about David. In episode 58, To Infinity and Beyond, I talked about the power of the infinitive to, and how important it is for our clients to be able to say, I don't want to, or I don't like to. Well, David has been learning that power in a developmentally appropriate way.
That means you begin saying things such as I don't like bomb. Or I don't like Denise before he began saying he didn't like a particular activity or a particular choice he had, even if that's what he really meant. So I've heard my share of, I don't like Denise. On this particular day though, I heard something different.
David told me, I like all the Denise's to which I responded. I like you all the time too, David.
Don't kids say the best things? I love what I do. And I know you're in this profession because you love it too, and want to make this world a better place. Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas and happy new year. See you again in 2023.
