PROGRESS REPORT – 2007
CLIENT : Sam
THERAPIST :Katherine Rudolph
Exploring the Word in Colour & Speech
Phone: 0061 413 770 020
Impulse for Recreational Therapy
Sam has shown enthusiasm and willingness to participate in the painting, singing, speech and number games, and picture forming with coloured clay. He appreciates the activity and the communication. The tactile movement is rhythmical and conducive to harmony
Breathing – Flow of Speech
In his constant flow of speech and song, Sam exhibits a healthy breathing. He tends to need more out-breath, and often is exuberant. Sometimes his voice is quite strong. This expression has an assertive quality. To meet his speech, one must often repeat answers to his questions and then offer details of the course of the day etc., to satisfy his curiosity and need for reciprocal communication. He lives very much in the present, so that repetition does not bore him. Sometimes painful memories of the war in Vietnam come up, at which time it is best to change the subject, or sing another song. Sometimes, in the flow, other memories and songs come out that are hard to capture a second time.
Balance of Vowels
Being a person who has strong feelings, Sam feels the vowel sounds especially intensely. In the speech games, he enjoys intoning vowels, just for the sake of hearing them. One hears more of the Ah O UU in him than the EE A. This shows his expansive nature. The way he expresses himself shows a love of the rhythmical in language. He sometimes says, for example, “I’m not a hundred percent, I’m not a lot, I’m not very much, but I’m ENOUGH!” He has an artistic and musical nature and plays with words.
Balance of Consonants
K L S F M (a consonantal out-breath)
Lips – MBPFV
Sam can differentiate all but B and P. Sometimes, after repetition, he can
differentiate them, but it is not predictable. Both consonants still sound like B.
Teeth – LNDT TH SZ R SH CH J
The TH sound is still hard for Sam, as well as Z and SH. J is pronounced like Y.
Palate – YGK CH H
G is sometimes difficult
Articulation
Sam is quite able to make himself understood. Sometimes he slurs the sounds out of a need to speak too quickly. He loves French and Japanese, and makes an effort to pronounce French correctly, when I teach him simple sentences in French. It reminds him of early youth and his mother in Vietnam (who passed over thus year). However since he seems to have somehow adjusted to the loss, it makes him happy to remember French.
Course of Therapy
Sam paints two paintings in quick succession. He pays attention to the rhythm rather than the process itself. I help him by making strong light/dark contrasts which he sometimes sees. Sam’s seriously impaired vision seems to fluctuate. He can blow a cigarette ash into a small hole in a can, at times; yet, cannot distinguish the coloured clay on the table a short time later. I suspect that he has tunnel vision, which might also explain his accuracy at bowling. His two abilities with picture-forming are rolling the plasticine clay, and mixing the colours of clay to get a ‘marbled effect’. He is comfortable with this, and enjoys it.
One example of the coloured clay picture-forming technique can be seen at this time. Some of this year’s paintings will also be visible.
Sam is working on counting forwards and backwards to ten, and he is learning the French song ‘Allouette’. When possible, I attempt to bring such new elements into his work, avoiding the tendency to become ‘fixed’ in a particular pattern of activity.
Prognosis
I would recommend that Sam continue with the present therapy in the coming year. I would like to acquire a small Xylophone for him as well. He may be able to sing vowels and play at the same time, during a pause in the aforesaid process.
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