Thought Bubble vs Talk Bubble

Thought Bubble:

vs. Talk Bubble:

See the difference? The Talk Bubble has solid, well formed edges. The Thought Bubble is more nebulous with ‘niches’ for things to bump around inside.

Picasso has lots of things that bounce around in his mind - all sorts of creative ideas, possibilities, actions. The problem is transferring his plans, thoughts, and ideas into actual conversation. So his speech therapist has been using the Thought Bubble vs Talk Bubble as a reminder that while it’s in his head, she doesn’t know what it is because he’s not expressing it to her. She commented on some moderate success.

We began implementing this at home, to some extent, and have seen a great response to it. We don’t use it always, or even often, just sometimes, as we see need. But it makes a huge difference to be consistent across home and therapy, in things like this.

On Monday, we had a huge success. He was working with some clay in his Speech session and he was building his “creation” while the therapist built hers. He seemed intrigued by what she was making and asked, “Would you put your Thought Bubble into your Talk Bubble and share your plan with me?” SUPER cool! She was thrilled that he was able to use that to ask her a question about what she was doing. It serves as a reminder for him, but he’s now starting to carry it over into regular conversation and realize that others have a Thought Bubble and a Talk Bubble as well, and unless we ask for things to be put into the Talk Bubble, we may not know what their thoughts are.

Additionally, he identified another of his own emotions on Monday - anger. We haven’t heard too many of the “good emotions” yet - happy, playful, silly, funny. But we’ve heard frustrated, anxious and angry. Those - especially anxious - can be tough to internalize, and he’s described his feelings using those words, correctly, at least once. It’s great to see such progress!