Don’t we hear some of the funniest, wisest, all around best things from children? Here’s a collection of some my best moments with clients in 2023. Enjoy Kids Say the BEST Things, 2023.

— Useful Links —
Emoji Handout 
Empowering Children with Autism Through Natural Language Acquisition 
Essential Language for Autism 
Open Doors 
A Parent, A Child, and Autism 
Kids Say the Best Things 2022 
Music: Simple Gifts performed by Ted Yoder, used with permission

Transcript

Denise: Hello, everybody, welcome to the Speech Umbrella podcast. This is our 99th episode. I can hardly believe I’ve done 99 of these. So thank you so much for listening. Since we’re in the thick of it with the holidays, this one will be short and sweet. Uh, last year I did an episode called Kids Say the Best Things, and I have been saving up all the funny, sweet and even profound things my clients have said, so I can do this year’s version. Sit back and enjoy Kids Say the Best Things, 2023.

The first three quotes I have all came from the same little guy. He is a sparky preschooler. Let’s just say you know when he’s in the room. He had to miss several weeks of therapy because of illness going around the family. And when he was finally able to come again, I got the best greeting as I walked into the waiting room. He spread his arms wide, gave me a huge grin and announced, ‘ me back’!

 Now with the same child, we were looking at animal pictures and he noticed that both rabbits and fish have tails. I asked him, do you have a tail? And he replied, ‘no me have a butt.’

 Just a few weeks ago, he made an announcement. When I walked into the waiting room, he’s a kid for announcements, if you haven’t noticed. He said I have a new power. I asked him naturally, what is your new power? He looked a bit puzzled and then he answered by jumping off the floor with both legs. What a great world to live in when you can discover a new power like jumping. I want to live in that world.

 The next quote illustrates the power of natural language acquisition, which was the topic of episode 27 and It’s about helping children with autism generate spontaneous language. Well, I had a preschool girl who was very verbal, but she tended to use the same phrases, and sometimes her language is pretty vague. She said a lot of things like I did it and good job. And I was beginning to suspect that she was on the autism spectrum and that she was a gestalt language processor.

 So I started modeling how to break up her gestalts, it’s like you do in NLA, and she responded very, very quickly. She just picked up really fast. Some kids just need the tiniest push in the right direction. And that was the case for her. Her mom actually told me about what she said. They were reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and she asked, how is that possible? He’s just a little mouse. Now that is awesome self-generated language.

 My next quote came from a fourth grader who was on the autism spectrum. We had been talking about emotions and learning the vocabulary for different feelings. And by the way, the emoji worksheet we used as we were talking about feelings is in my free resource library, which you can subscribe to by going to thespeechumbrella.com/free. We’ve been talking about two kinds of hurt. the one where you are physically hurt and the one where you hurt inside because your feelings get hurt. When it was time to go, she went under the table to retrieve her shoes. I don’t know how they always come off, but they do. And I said, don’t bump your head. And she said, wait, bumping your head on the table is an ouch kind of hurt. Don’t you love those aha moments?

 And here’s one by my happiest preschooler. We were using dot markers and he said, I want yellow, it my favorite happy. I asked him if he liked green and he replied, it mind me a throw up. Now I wish I had asked him what all the colors meant to him. Those are so great.

 Do you ever wonder what age you should let your client win the game? I definitely let preschoolers win and I don’t rig anything with upper elementary kids because they will know. But in between those ages, it’s kind of gray based on your client’s maturity level. Now in this story, I misjudged my client’s maturity level. Big time when I deliberately didn’t take the opportunity to win at Connect Four. Then my client also deliberately missed the opportunity to win and said accusingly, you clearly saw it. Touche. So I went ahead and I won the game and I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderfully he pronounced clearly, because he’s working on R and L.

 The last three quotes are all by the same client. He’s the one I called David in episodes, 26, 27 and 28. He has come a very long way since I did those episodes. For those of you not familiar with his story, he is on the autism spectrum and he just started junior high this year. We’ve been working on spontaneous language and developing syntax for a very long time. While he has made such growth, one of the areas we’re still working on is questions. He tends to ask repetitive questions. I’ve heard it referred to as polling kinds of questions. For example, he might ask, do you have a black piano? Totally out of the blue when greeting someone. And I wondered if he could ask questions that were pertinent to the situation. Well, here’s how I found out. One day. I heard him walk into the waiting room and make a kind of uh-oh noise as he shut the door behind him. When I investigated, I found that the door had frozen shut. The lock had disintegrated and the door would not open for him to leave when he was done or it wouldn’t open for anyone else to come in. So David watched me trying to get the door open and ask very matter of factly. Do you have a key?

 It was worth having a broken door to learn that he can in fact ask pertinent questions when he needs to. And by the way, it’s great having a handy husband who works from home and who can replace a lock at a moment’s notice.

 The second David story occurred when he had to go with his mother to pick up his sister instead of staying home, and he really didn’t want to do that. His mom told me that he cried as they drove. She asked him what was wrong and he replied, I feel a bummer. That my friends is a wonderful example of NLA stage four generative language.

 I saved the best for last. This is profound rather than funny, and actually made me tear up when I heard it. In David’s church, all the youth talk to their ecclesiastical leader once a year for a how are you doing and how can I help you kind of interview. His mother went with him. And before the interview, she reminded him to tell us later that he was making good choices. Making good choices as something they had been working on him with. When he didn’t mention it during the interview, David’s mother prompted him by asking what do you choose? And he replied happiness.

 How often we learn more from our clients. Then they learn from us. Thanks for listening. Happy holidays. And remember to choose happiness.