A Moment in His World

I’ve been concerned lately at Noah’s growing frustration and lack of cooperation.  Most attempts by me to work with him on refining his speech is met by resistance.  He is starting to be noncompliant in our school time, and I’m just sensing barriers going up any time I push him towards doing anything remotely academic or speech related.

The thing that bothers me the most is his aversion to making eye contact with me when he knows I’m trying to work with him.  Am I pushing too hard?

Probably.

But I can’t just let him stay where he’s at.  I mean, it’s my job to push him to do great things, right?

No answers here, but I did enjoy a few minutes with him yesterday evening.

I met him where he was at.  And he let me stay awhile.

Noah was sitting on the couch looking at a book.  (YAY!)

I walked in the room and without saying a word, I was able to attract his attention.  I signed to him without saying a word that I wanted him to come with me so I could brush his teeth.

He signed back – “YOU come HERE!”

So we went back and forth a few times playfully signing “You come here,” and “No, you come here.”

But I really did need to brush his teeth, so I cozied up to him on the couch.  By this time he was laughing.

I signed “You ride.”

That got his attention.  So I gave him a piggy back ride to the bathroom.

Mind you, it is VERY unusual for us to use sign language without at least me saying the word out loud too.  But this communication exchange we had was totally silent, and boy did I have his attention!

So we got to the bathroom and continued our silent game, and I lived for a few minutes in a Noah-controlled world where no speech was necessary.

Magic.  Absolute magic.

After a bit Noah caught on I was up to something, so he reverted back into his uncooperative self, but I had him for a few precious minutes, and oh, the fun we had!  What a blessing to hear Noah laugh and laugh and laugh.

There is something special that happens when you and your child look into each others eyes and use language other than speech to communicate.  It doesn’t have to be formal sign language.  There’s a lot you can communicate just by gestures.

Try it.  Even if your child doesn’t have a speech delay, try making a game out of communicating without the spoken word.  I often see the spoken word as a key to the world around Noah, but that spoken word can also be a barrier.

Hearts know no words, but they know each other.

 

Related articles

• Sign Language (mattmilbrandt.wordpress.com)
• Show Them ‘Signs’ of Understanding (ilearnnearn.wordpress.com)
• Sign language courses in college increasingly popular (mercurynews.com)
• Free Printable Cutom Book for Target Speaking Words (wordsofhisheart.wordpress.com)

Driving Our Way Through the ABC’s

I combined a couple activities I saw on Pinterest and came up with this:

I bought the cars at the Dollar Store – three for a dollar.

The Littles (Noah -6 with Down syndrome, Bella 4 and Seth 3) love this new activity!

Here’s the scoop:

Activity:  Driving Our Way Through the ABCs

Supplies Needed:

1. 26 toy cars.
2. White craft paper from a roll
3. Markers
4. Circle stickers (found in office supplies for garage sale pricing)

Preparation: 

1. Draw a road on craft paper with separate “garages” marked in order from A-Z.  Add decorations like parks and trees – get as fancy as you like and perhaps even let your little one help.
2. Write a different letter on each circle sticker,  A-Z. 
3. Place one sticker on each car.

Directions:  Have your child drive each car along the road to its designated garage.  For children new to the alphabet, line up the cars in order so that the first car goes to the first garage which will be marked A, the second car will go to the next garage marked B, etc.  For children more familiar with the alphabet, mix up the cars so the child will have to search for the matching letter.

(Or you can just look at the picture and probably figure out everything you need to know.)

Look out Mom – this activity just might keep Junior busy for the whole afternoon!

 

Free Printable Cutom Book for Target Speaking Words

Finding different ways to have children with speech delays use some of the words they are drilling in speech therapy can be a challenge, but it’s necessary in order to have those words integrated into each child’s vocabulary.

The Lovely Miss L, Noah’s former speech therapy was a genius at coming up with ways to do just that.  One technique she used was making PEC books out of Noah’s target words.  His first book was a story about a bee, a blue boat, a mommy and a daddy.  Now that Noah has mastered those words, I tried my hand at making a new PEC story book for him, and I have it here to share as a freebie:  Bye-Bye Moon PEC book

Just cut the pages into horizontal strips, assemble the book according to the text below, and staple it together in the top left corner.

Text:

Bye bye moon.  Hi sun.  Time to wake up.  Listen.  Daddy up.  Mommy up.  Noah up. Out of bed.  Noah eat cookie?  No no Noah.  Noah eat oat?  No no Noah.  Yes, yes, Noah.  Daddy go bye bye in beep beep.  Noah in beep beep?  No no Noah.  Bye bye Daddy.  Bye bye beep beep.  Mommy home.  Noah home.

This doubles as a social story, because the text reminds Noah to stay in his bed until he hears Mommy or Daddy moving around in the morning .  Also it reminds him that although he can’t go to work with Daddy, Mommy will be home with him – oh joy!

And yes, I am a little narcissistic when it comes to Noah – someday he’ll have his own line of children’s books, I’m sure.  If you’d like to exchange Noah’s name and picture for your child’s, you can find the editable file over at www.mrsriley.com at http://mrsriley.com/app/#fileID=64593.