DTTC Tip: Start Every Block With Direct Imitation

Full transcript

Hi, it's Nicole from the NYU Motor Speech Lab, coming in with a quick DTTC tip. I just started last week with a new cohort of kids for our research study, and this is something that's been on my mind, and something I sometimes forget to do, so I figured it would be good to share.

Whenever you start a new block, that targeted, repetitive practice of your word, you always want to start with direct imitation, no matter where you are, or where you think you are, in the hierarchy.

The reason I've been thinking about this is a little boy I'm working with. He's really profoundly impacted. Going into the block, I know he doesn't have the word at all, and I don't want him to make a mistake or to feel bad. So I started going right into slow simultaneous production. But that doesn't give him the opportunity to show me what he's learned in treatment. It might just surprise you, like it did for me today: I started with direct imitation, feeling like it was going to be hard and that we'd have to go to slow simultaneous or simultaneous, and we didn't have to.

It can work the other way, too. You have a kid who's just been killing it. They're doing so well with, let's say, one word, so you go into the block thinking you'll be in delayed imitation, or even sprinkling in spontaneous, and all of a sudden you realize they're not there. This happens a lot.

Your best bet is to go back, start at direct imitation, and from there gauge where they are and adapt. I hope that's helpful.