Reasonable request?
I’m a RBT, I absolutely LOVE accommodating my kiddos environment/session to benefit him. I’m super lucky I work with his SLP and follow her guidance closely. My kiddo uses both AAC and verbal speech. But still not communicating reliably.
One thing we discussed is what the clinic environment looks like, and what his space usually looks like. I mentioned, it does get loud and chaotic at times. She mentioned it is a lot of auditory input for him to process, and he might have trouble filtering out meaningful vs unmeaningful stimuli. This can affect when I’m working on modeling language/communication targets.
I wanted to ask my clinic admin team IF I could possibly use a room (that goes unused majority of the week, it’s a storage/meeting room), if we can utilize that space sometimes. I always observed him to have such better attending, focus, and independent communication when it’s just him and I by ourselves. When MANY other kids are present in his usual space, I find it hard for him to keep his attention going. I want to set him up for success. I know quiet spaces will not always be available, but I wish my clinic would accommodate him a little more. He is one of our only kiddos who’s covering his ears when it gets loud, but struggles with headphones. He enjoys regular music over the ear headphones too. I think our society is changing so much to have these accommodations available, such as having break spaces and quiet rooms. I think this is such an outdated view of “they’re going to have to deal with it regardless, and quiet spaces will not always be available”. Yes that’s true, but our world is changing to much. I’ve left so many gatherings to just sit in the car bc it gets chaotic. I just want to set him up for success when it comes to his language. I want to ask my admin team, but am nervous.
Yes I can always have him mand for headphones bc sometimes he will have to be around loud environments. I’m just talking specifically for times when I want to work on communication/language targets and need his full attention.