Blowing a Balloon

This is Raiyan achieving another progress milestone, blowing the biggest balloon he's ever blown! With his slight dyspraxia affecting the strength of his jaw muscles, Raiyan found this very difficult to do before but with the tips given by the speech therapist we saw back in March, which included making him drink with a thick straw, his oral movements are getting better.

The one thing I found difficult to explain whilst he was trying to learn to blow the balloon, was to NOT suck back the air that he has already blown. I mean I'm not completely sure if sucking back the air is a bad thing to do but something involving directly breathing in carbon dioxide was something I just couldn't let go off.

I think it was to do with a number of things that Raiyan just couldn't get the concept of what I was telling him

- difficulty with following a negative instruction

- not knowing what "air" is as it wasn't a visual thing he could see

- not understanding what "sucking" is

-not fully understanding "before" and "after" (cause I kept saying, you take the balloon out of your mouth before you let go of the balloon and you can only blow into the balloon after you take a breath etc etc).

In the end I just had to teach him to blow the balloon on a step by step basis (though I think he was a bit upset with him not being able to freely blow as how he wants it!).

First you blow, then shut the balloon, then blow, then shut etc etc..

I'm still not sure whether it's ok to suck back the air? If it is, then I don't have to be so overly concerned! Help! Any comments are welcomed!

This is him "shutting" the balloon

This is him "blowing" the balloon

Ta daaa!!! Raiyan's biggest balloon to date!