Monday, March 3, 2008

Speech therapy

Today after speech therapy I asked Amanda, her therapist, how Natalie did. She said she did well, and today Amanda introduced the PECS communication system and said Natalie picked up on it right away. Amanda showed Natalie several cards, including one with bubbles on it, then pushed the bubble bottle to the side. Natalie reached for the bubble bottle, but Amanda didn't give it to her. Right away, Natalie picked up the bubble card and gave it to Amanda, and Amanda gave her the bubbles!

I am surprised that she picked up on it so quickly, but I shouldn't be. Natalie understands most of what we say, and I think she is ready to communicate, but the switch in her brain to communicate with spoken words hasn't flipped yet. She knows quite a few signs, but she doesn't have great coordination to make the signs. She has often said a word once, but not again. She has even said, "I did that" when we were telling someone about something she did...but she's never said it again. These are all great signs that she will speak, but we just have to be patient for her to do it in her own time (which is hard to do!)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay Natalie! PECS is a great way to open the door for Natalie to be an independent communicator while working on speech. That's awesome she did so well.

On another note, a friend of mine is going to start working at Cornerstone. Her name is Candice and she's an OT - say hi if you happen to see her :)

Miss you!
Sarah

Anxious AF said...

Go Natalie, I cant wait to hear how well Alex will do with communication. Im praying he will talk, as Im sure we all want deep down.
He is still sleeping through the night, last night he slept 13 hours straight?!?!?!? He did get a 6:00 am feed though.