Our first try with the final /k/ pivot phrase pages

I made the final /k/ pivot phrase pages a few days ago for Ava (and shared them with you). We sat down during our after dinner at home therapy session to try them. It looked like it was going to go well. She was excited about the new pages. They were bright, colorful, and looked new. She was excited about the treat she was going to earn. A necessity, as I've discussed. Things all went downhill from there.

Here was my reasoning for trying the pivot phrases. First, she was blasting through the pivot phrase exercises in the Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol Workout Book. All of those use early emerging sounds and she's pretty much got those now. She's even starting to add final consonants on the medial words in therapy without prompting. So, doing those exercises is good practice and review, but not challenging any more. Second, she was starting to get that final /k/ in single word practice at least 60-80% of the time. I really thought we might be successful at moving up to the pivot phrase level.

Well... not so much. I don't know if she was just having an off night, but she could hardly produce the final /k/ sound at the single-word level. The pivot phrases were a complete bust. I should have taped it. It was prototypical motor planning problems. No two attempts were the same. One time the /k/ would pop in at the beginning of the phrase even though she can't actually produce initial /k/ sounds. Another time, the /k/ would pop in in the middle of the word and then there would be random /t/ sounds thrown in for fun. Everything was disjointed and there would be long pauses while her system just struggled to sequence.

After trying for several minutes unsuccessfully to get some /k/ productions at the single-word level and watching her frustration increase exponentially I shifted gears. I simply used the picture prompts on the pages and made up 2-3 word phrases with them working on getting all the final consonants in the short phrases. At that point we were in familiar territory using all early emerging sounds and she was able to experience some success. Every so often I would probe the /k/ again, but without success.

I guess I'll try again in a few days. I hope someone else had more luck with these.