Words and Other Break-Throughs

Natalie might have some words in her vocabulary!  Although she does not use them on a regular basis, we have heard noises that sound awfully similar to words and makes sense for the context in which they were said.  We will take whatever we can get!  So at 20 months, she can say:

• Oooo - shoe

• duck - duck (while we were looking at animal pictures)

• ook - book (while she was standing by the book shelf)

• uhhp - cup (she had a very soft "p" at the end - she was reaching for her cup)

• 'er ih oh?? - where'd it go? (with hands in a questioning position after throwing her toy)

• Ooohhhhh - oh no! (after dropping a toy or knocking something over)

• Da! - Dad! (she loves her Daddy - this has been her only word for several months up to this point)

As part of our Early Childhood Intervention meetings, they teach me new methods to work with Natalie to help her develop her communication skills.  Our last meeting they taught me how to show Natalie how to point.  The first step to communication is learning how to point to objects, then to point to objects on command.  For example, "Where is the doll?  Point to the doll."  Then she would have to point to the doll.  Up to this point, she had not done either. She never pointed and couldn't identify anything on command.

I worked on helping her form her finger into a point and would point with her to several objects while speaking to her about what we were doing.  "Where is the cup?  Here is the cup.  This is the cup.  Can you point to the cup?"  It was quite tedious but it did seem to work.  She began to point to things for the first time ever.  She still wouldn't point to things on command, but she did start to use her finger to show me things and point things out to me where she normally would not have done so.

Tonight we had a break through.  She was standing on the ottoman, throwing her toy camera on the floor.  I said "Uh oh!  Where did it go?!"  She looked at me, smiled, and pointed to the camera on the floor.  I praised her and handed the camera back.  "Here is your camera."  She would then throw the camera again.  Followed by me with "Uh oh!  Where did it go?  Where is your camera?"  She would again point with her finger to the camera.  Praise continued and we repeated this cycle over and over and over again.  She thought it was hilarious.  To make sure she understood why she was pointing at the camera, I handed her a doll and we repeated the same thing.  Then, I handed her the camera and her doll.  She threw both down and I asked her to point to her camera (not the doll).  She did it!  I was so proud of her!

The next stage of communication involves imitating sounds and noises (followed by the last stage which is word formation).  Early Childhood Intervention met with us today and it was the main focus of our session.  Natalie successfully made kissy noises with her doll and toy dinosaurs, "brrrrr" noises for a car, and "beep beep" noises for the horn of the car.  She had never done any of these noises previously.   I was so glad to hear these simple sounds. 

They also taught me signs I can use when communicating with her to see if she will try to communicate that way.  While working with her today, I used the sign for "more" and she signed it back.  I'm not sure if she understood yet why I was signing it but she was able to copy the sign perfectly.  I am hoping this will work well for her.  The signs they taught me today are: drink, more, all done, help, and book.  There is a really helpful website that has baby signs done on video for you so that you can learn them easier.  I spent a few minutes going through them tonight.  I think they will be very helpful.

So, although Natalie still doesn't have a very comprehensive vocabulary, I do feel like she is making some drastic improvements.  She seems to be responding better to me and also is beginning to follow simple commands.  She cleans up toys when I ask, puts her shoes away, and grabs her cup, which are all amazing steps for her.  I am hoping she doesn't have a hearing problem and that she has just decided to take her time with communicating, but we shall see.  She still has her ABR scheduled for September 2.  I am hoping we get some much needed answers at that time.  In the meantime, I look forward to many more steps in the right direction!