Moot Thoughts & Musings

It's been six months since Ellis's CI activation. It was actually 6 mos exactly a week ago, but I've been wanting to sit down and write a long, eloquent post, but it's just not going to happen, at least eloquence isn't. So I'll pound out some details just to keep them around.

Last Thurs in his speech therapy session at CHOP, Totally Awesome Therapist declared that Ellis was ready to graduate from Learning to Listen Sounds (like "choo-choo" for train) to actual words. So we're cycling back through a few consonants adding words. So far (in no particular order) we've done B, M, P, H, N, and W (with a variety of vowel combinations), and are now back on B for words.

He has good auditory discrimination (esp pitch and rhythm) and short-term auditory memory. He imitates speech ALL the time.

He has about 40 words expressively and receptively (speech that is, he's hundreds in sign, of course--we lost count over a year ago). It's funny to go through all these stages again, because I feel like we were just here...just in ASL.

Words he says (well, they aren't perfect, but the meaning is there). I'm going to record how he says them, because it's so cute (sorry if this is crazy pedantic, it's partly for my record, too):

stop (a silent "p", sometimes "op")
help (silent "hp")
ow
whee (as in going down a slide; this a Learning to Listen [LTL] sound)
yay (as in yippee!)
eww (as in yucky, dirty)
Mmm (as in yummy/eating; LTL)
pop (says "pop" but it's silent/whispered)
sssh (as in sleep; LTL. Actually he makes this by sort of blowing through his teeth, same with the "s" sound)
no (oh)
yes (yea)
more (mo)
hi (silent "h")
bye
open (oh)
go (oh)
wash (ba; can sometimes get a "wa" out of him, but he's hanging onto that B)
water (ba)
wet (ba; he signs with these, so I know which one it is)
jump (silent "p")
up
Daddy (aa-ee)
Poppy (my FIL, silent "pop")
baby (beebee)
eyes (long i sound)
nose (oh)
all done (ah-ba)
dirty (uh-ee)
hot (silent "ha")
juice (ooooh)
ball (ba)
beepbeep (as in car; LTL)
moo (as in cow; LTL. says "ooooh")
meow (as in cat; LTL. says "ow")
woofwoof (as in dog; LTL. says "woo, woo")
knock-knock (as in door; LTL. says "bah, bah")
choo-choo (as in train; LTL. says "ooo-ooooo")
aaah (as in airplane; LTL)
quack-quack (as in duck; LTL. says "ba, ba")
shoes (oooh)
wait (bee)
please (eee)
wow (bow)
I swear he said "ah-oo" for thank-you the other day, too.

He might not always get the consonant/vowels completely right, but the inflection is usually really close. I'm happy that he's getting the hang of this talking thing and seems to enjoy it. When his CI is on, I see him incorporating talking into his play independent of us, and that's really where a child's learning and internalizing takes place. It's sweet to hear his little voice saying "oo-ooo" over his wooden train track.

Thanks to his totally awesome bilingual classroom, though, he is still progressing marvelously in his signing skills. It's hard for me to sit here and make a list of what he's doing in sign, because by now it's such a natural part of our life. This is where we have conversations.

He reads books in ASL now, simple stories, like his favorite, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (or any of the sequels). He doesn't use classifiers perfectly or anything (even I don't! top on my list of ASL Thing I Need to Finetune), but he's got the basic gist. He uses more descriptive signs all the time, like colors, feelings, fast/slow. One thing that I think is really cute is that in all the pictures he points out the little kid as him, an older male as Daddy, and an older female as Mommy. I think I make a nice Mommy monkey. :-)

He's still in love with his letters. He's nailed a few more handshapes (I and J are big accomplishments). He's SO cute the way he stops, makes the I, and carefully signs "noodle". He's only got one handshape left to grow into, W. He still makes a 4 instead.

And, get this!, he recognizes his printed name!! Can you believe it?! They're doing this at school, recognizing their own and their classmates printed names and fingerspelling them. We were at a parent-teacher meeting, and one teacher showed us this and held up some random kid's name (only letters, no pictures), and E glanced up and did her name sign. We were so surprised! haha!

We have our first meeting to transition him to an IEP in a couple of weeks. He will be turning 3 in June. I'm really not looking forward to this. If you have any advice about making IEPs say what you want them to say, please let me know. I have a couple of books I'm looking through, so that I'll at least know what we're legally entitled to.

So that's Ellis News, the Quick and Dry Edition. I wish I had a fun movie for you, but life is so fleeting around an super, speedy-fast 2.5 yo.