Chaya: Therapy is hard work.

Leizer: Thinking is hard work.

Therapist: Training such a devoted parent is a dream!

Chaya calls again a week later. She’s been practicing with Leizer daily, and she’s ready for the next step. “The trip looms,” she says grimly.

“Okay,” I respond. “A detective doesn’t just pick up clues; he deduces their meaning. Once Leizer collects all the clues, he needs to put them together to solve the mystery. Step two is getting him into the habit of thinking about what’s going on around him.”

Chaya stops me. “Leizer won’t know what ‘think about what’s going on around you’ means.”

“You’ll teach him what a thought is. Put something tangible in front of him, like a cookie. Ask him what he sees….”

“A cookie,” Chaya supplies.

“Right. Then take the cookie away and ask Leizer what he’s thinking. What will he answer?”

“He’s thinking about the cookie.”

“Of course. If he needs help, prompt him. Do this with different objects. Make it fun! The point is for him to learn that a thought is the pictures or ideas you have in your head.”

I show Chaya what I mean. “It’s not enough to just drill Leizer: Who do you see? Where are you? Leizer needs to think about everything to understand what’s going on around him.”

Chaya has the photos on hand, so she picks one and we role-play. “Where are you?” I ask.

“A basketball court.”

A detective has to cover every angle. “Where is it?”

“Outdoors.”

“Where outdoors?”

“Uh… near a school. I see the building and the buses.”

I move on to “when.” “What time is it?” Time can be the actual time on the clock, the season, the period in history, the occasion, or even relative to another event.

“Class time. I can tell because no kids are playing.” Chaya continues searching for clues: “It looks like fall, I see leaves on the ground. I would guess late afternoon, by the shadows.”

“Based on everything you see and think about this picture, what’s going to happen next?”

“School will end soon, the kids will go home.”

“Then?”

“Maybe some kids will shoot a few baskets on their way out.”

Three weeks before Chaya’s trip, she reports some progress. “I was cooking dinner, the kids were coming home and needing attention, the baby was cranky but it was too early for bed…”

“Sounds familiar.” We laugh.

“Leizer walked in and started being really demanding, whining about a new bike, insisting on standing near me to see what I’m doing. I said, ‘Leizer, stop! Look around. Who else is here? What do you see?’ So he looked around and said, ‘I’m in the kitchen with you, Miri, and the baby, you’re cooking, Miri is doing homework with you, and the baby is crying.’ Then before I could say anything more, he said, ‘I guess it’s not a good time to go buy a new bike now.’ ”

“Fantastic!”

Chaya plays it down. “It’s still just the home environment. I don’t know if this will help for the trip. But having a plan makes me feel better.”

“Of course,” I concur. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

-This is why mothers are such great therapists for their own kids — mother knows her child best.

 -The concepts of before, now, and after are included in “when.”

 -Prediction is particularly important for Leizer to practice. With the ability to look around and predict what will happen next, he’ll no longer feel as anxious in social situations or new places.

Originally featured in Family First, Issue 602. D. Himy, M.S. CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist in private practice for over 15 years. She is the creator of the Link-It reading comprehension and writing curriculum for elementary school students and directs continuing education programs for speech-language pathologists and educators.