Examples Of Clinical Observation Paper

For my clinical observation I observed a 29 month old boy named Caleb. Caleb has what is called childhood apraxia of speech; he is receiving one on one session with a speech language pathologists three days a week for about 30 minutes each session. Caleb was being treated at a clinic in a small room with toys and an ipad for him to interact with. According to The American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA 2017) childhood apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder. A child with this disorder has trouble moving his or her articulators to produce a sound or word. This is due to a part of the brain that has issues moving body parts like the lips, jaw, or tongue. The child is aware of what he or she is trying to say but it may come out

She then emphasizes on the word. For example when Caleb says “boat” she asks who’s boat he went on, he responses by saying “papa doat”. The SLP is working on getting Caleb to use longer word phrases because clearly he wants to say as few words and syllables as possible because that would be much easier. By asking questions she can get longer phrases out of Caleb and work on pronouncing those sounds together the correct way. As she says it correctly her goal is for him repeat it back in the hopes that he will hear how she says it correctly and he will try and copy her. She is working on using the correct articulation so that Caleb's phonology is better. To achieve this goal the SLP may repeat the phrases a number of times and if Caleb mispronounces a single syllable she may just repeat that syllable so he can break down the word and really try and pronounce it correctly. Caleb still struggles saying the word or phrase completely correct but, hearing the word pronounced correctly multiple times is good therapy for Caleb and eventually will help his phonology. The SLP also does a task involving a lollypop. She uses the pop to get Caleb to move some of his articulators. This way he can really focus on getting those muscles to move by themselves. Her goal is for Caleb to correctly use his articulators when she asks, this way it will be easier for his speech when he goes to

She never got frustrated with Caleb. For example when he would randomly get up and walk around she did not yell at him to sit or ever force him to do anything. She was nice and encouraging about everything and I feel that is half the battle when dealing with children in her situation. I also think the SLP did an excellent job keeping Caleb interested in all the tasks he was doing. Even though he was doing a lot of tedious things like repeating words back and moving tongue up and down, she did it all in a way where Caleb was having fun, he would crack a smile a lot or giggle. She was enthusiastic and interacted with Caleb in a way where he probably never really felt like he was in any sort of therapy. If the SLP failed to keep Caleb entertained and focused he might but tune her out and sort of shut down until the session was over. Of course this is common of children to have a sort attendance span, but I think the SLP really mastered this aspect of her job when working with