I was told that Nazurah's autism is slightly below moderate, few sensory issues, she can make sense with environment, good hands-on skills but less skills in cognitive and language.
Last thursday night, I was sitting opposite Nazurah. I called her name and i asked her if she wanted to go Changi airport. I told her to get ready if she wants. I only gives her verbal instructions. She looked at me and she showed me the airport photo in her iPod and she got ready to go. Usually she will just look at me with no response and continued doing what she was doing and i have to give her physical prompts or cue.
I think she can now understand simple random verbal instructions better.
Last Friday night we went strolling at the Helix Bridge towards Marina Bay Sands, Nazurah was walking in between me and my helper and i was chatting with my elder daughter. I heard somebody roll the R sound 3 times and i turned around and asked my helper who was that doing the R sound 3 times? She said Nazurah did it first twice and the 3rd time it was her immitating Nazurah to play with her. I never heard she did that before! When i asked Nazurah to roll her R again and even immitate her, she couldnt or wouldnt do it on demand. So didnt hear it anymore. I asked my helper many time if she is sure that was Nazurah who rolled her R and not somebody else. She was definite it was Nazurah. I was surprised coz i think rolling the R is not an easy thing to do.
I am so happy to hear that from her coz i guess something is working. My earlier post i said that she played alot with her saliva, making bubbles and even spitting! Now i hear her roll her R and i feel a sense of hope that one day she can talk. I hope she can talk purposefully though. Thats whre I hope Nutriiveda can help too.
Lisa gave me some pointers that are most useful.
"The way I'd get Tanner to repeat is reverse psych.. Me: 'OMG!!! Kids your age are NEVER able to say ______!!! That means you are growing up and I want you to stay little forever. Don't say ____ again!!!!" I would say as I put my hand over his mouth (of course I would say this laughing and he would be laughing) and then of course he would keep trying to say it and I would be saying "NOOOOooooo!!!" and laughing we'd start running with me chasing after Tanner saying "don't say it again don't say it again" and I'd count to make sure he said it at least 3 times to make sure it's in his motor memory."
So for rolling the rs I'd read the following and get a mirror and lay on the floor and play around with your tongue and have fun making funny faces and sounds- but perhaps while "playing" you can make the rolling r sound (with other sounds too like raspberries and popping sounds blowing air out of your cheeks...you know the way you can fill your cheeks with air and then slap your cheeks and make them pop like a balloon ) and when you do the rolling r sound see if Nazurah does it again. If she does just laugh and imitate her back and make a game with it -no stress. I was always told to try to get them to repeat (in a fun way) at least 3 times to help it get into the motor memory -always worked for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(tips I found on the net for rolling r's)
Place your tounge on the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth - with as little pressure as possible (very gently)
Then blow with your tounge in this position - if you blow har denough your the air will fore it's way betwwen your tounge and your mouth forcing your tounge to vibrate producing the rolling sound.
Then make an ahhhh sound at the same time.
Put a standard r sound at the begining of this.
Hopefully this will produce the desired result
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Try this: don't think of it as an 'r'. Think of it as a really long 'd' with a little bit of an 'r' at the end.
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Obviously, modify this once you get the hang of it.
1. Make "duck lips".
2. Open your jaw slightly.
3. Place the sides of your tongue so that it touches the underside of your top teeth, but leave the tip of your tongue not touching anything.
4. Take a deep breath and blow out forcefully. Try and get your tongue to make a flapping noise. Then start adding the traditional "r" noise.
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you might need some of the following techniques to be able to roll a perfect r in the future.
1. Loosen up the tongue
The reason why a lot of people can't roll their r's is simple because they're too stressed, or at least their tongue is. Speakers of American English are actually quite near a rolling r, although most tend to say it's impossible for them to do. The problem is, however, that they keep their tongue way too far back. The trick is to put your tongue in the front of your mouth, but we'll get back on that later. First, you want to loosen up your tongue.
Something I found useful is to use a tongue-twister. Three simple words worked to loosen up MY tongue: tee dee va. All I did was saying these words fast and for a long period, in order to loosen up my tongue. First I though it was a bunch of bullsh*t to do, but it actually worked.
2. Try to make short trilling sounds
So, you tongue is `loose' now? Good. After a lot of practicing with the above method I was able to produce short `trrr' and `drrr' sounds. The reason why I could only make the sound with a t or d in front of it, is because you hold your tongue close to the place it should be with and r when producing a t or d.
After the above technique you should be able to produce short rolling sounds as well. It doesn't matter if the rolling part only is there for a second, as long it's there. Just take a deep breath and push the air out trying to make a `trrr' or `drrr' sound.
3. Make a an individual rolling r
The next and crucial step it so be able to make a individual rolling r. This can be VERY hard to do, so be sure you practiced a lot with the `trrr'/'drrr' method. When I was learning to roll my r, the first few weeks my individual r's sounded like a weird sissing sound in the beginning. The good part, however, is that after a while you can make looooong rolling sounds without a sissing part in the beginning. Just practice, practice and practice. It can look hard, maybe impossible, to roll your r correctly, but you WILL succeed. Trust me, I've been there, I've been depressed over the fact I couldn't roll my r. But I've succeeded!
4. Putting your rolling r into words
Putting your newly acquired r into words can be really awkward in the beginning. The only way to overcome this is practice A LOT. One thing that helped me was listening to Spanish music and singing along (most people can't sing, including me, so you might try not to sing too loud), concentrating on the r's. Just try it, after some days you can confidently roll your r in words, just like any Spanish native-speaker.
Want some examples and instructions on how to place your tongue? http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
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Lisa Geng
President CHERAB Foundation
Communication Help, Education, Research, Apraxia Base
http://www.cherab.org http://www.pursuitofresearch.org
http://www.apraxia.org http://twitter.com/TheLateTalker
772-335-5135
"Help give our cherubs a smile and a voice"
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