Jamie words

[celticdragonfly]

Jamie's annual evaluation with his therapists is this Friday, so his words are much on my mind. He is improving, slowly. I was trying to come up with how many words he has that he can use - I think it's more than a dozen but less than 20. Not all of them get used frequently.

A couple of exciting ones happened recently. Saturday we were playing a CD, and Maggie was dancing, some by herself, some with the adults, some with Jamie. She'd ask him to dance, and they would. Then I heard him say "dance!"

He loves to play with the boffer swords selenite and rlseiver made for them at Christmas. Twice this week I'm pretty sure he said "sword" while asking to play.

The most moving one was last night. I was feeling headachy and unwell, and selenite was about to take Jamie upstairs to put him to bed, and brought him over to me on the couch to say goodnight first. I held him and he cuddled up and we were saying "night-night" (From Jamie, "ni-ni"), and I said "I love you". I heard back something that sounded an awful lot like "I love you" in return. At least it had the 'music' of the phrase right. That's the first time he's said that. It made me cry. I love my Jamie-boy.

Comments

Nice moment! And some advice (if you haven't considered it already)

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

Glad you had a poignant moment that you were willing to share, which I read yesterday on Tygerr's friends' page, but given the time constraints of the library's Internet service (an hour per patron) I didn't have time to offer the following:

I don't know the details or background or Jamie's situation. HOWEVER, given what you have written I'm not sure you were able to see the following:

It's very clear that he does what all children do --- he is trying to mimic your speech and that of others around him as best he can. That is what you have presented given how he said "dance" after Maggie asked him to do so and how he tried to say "I love you," back to you.

Children are, first and foremost, great imitators and mimics. And consider that while this really blows folks away given how smoothly articulate I am now (to the point where I was pretty much pushed to pursue a major and career in broadcast journalism when I was an undergrad at Syracuse, but I just wasn't into the superficiality of it. .. but I did deejay a bit and did commentaries on WAER, the campus radio station, nonetheless), I had severe speech impediments and hearing problems that contributed to that when I was a child so I was, constantly, having to take various speech classes so as to "correct" any number of things, including mastering and mimicking sounds so as to pronounce things the way other children my age were supposed to. I think those classes ended for me by the time I was in second grade. . .

One thing that helped, tremendously, was reading and being read to every single day and night. As the youngest of seven I had no shortage of siblings who read to me or served as speech "models" for me. This is to say that my guess (again--- based on what you wrote) is that Jamie may need more words to mimic, if that makes any sense. I also highly recommend music that he loves and emphasize repetition, repetition, repetition. It amazes me how kids can, easily, memorize the lyrics to their favorite songs. . .

Just a few suggestions. . .hope they don't seem too forward considering, again, that I am not a professional in this area, but do have some expertise in working with kids in reading, writing, etc. . .and then there's my own background of being learning disabled in the 1960s when folks, by and large, didn't have much of any idea on what to do with a kid like me. . .

But hey -- I think I turned out alright! LOL!!! And thus I trust Jamie will be just fine, too. . .

Re: Nice moment! And some advice (if you haven't considered it already)

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I had speech therapy as an older child - pronounciation problems, probably due to repeated ear infections and effectively temporary hearing impairment while learning to talk. Maggie had speech therapy until she was 3 - she was speech delayed but responded incredibly well and is a little chatterbox now. Jamie is speech delayed and is not responding as well as his sister did.

They do get read to every night that I'm home - usually a chapter from a classic book, not just picture books. I need to read to them more during the day, it happens sometimes but I'm sure more would be better. It can be hard for me during the day - I'm an introvert and have been frazzled lately and am needing more "cave time".

I should work on singing more with Jamie. I sang a lot with Maggie, and yes, she learned a lot of songs. But I think I started with her when she was a bit younger than Jamie but more verbally responsive than he is now. I do some song-games with Jamie, and need to keep trying to do them more often.

I'm trying to get him more time around other kids - nursery time at church, he's too young for Sunday school, but we're going to put him in this fall even though I'm not sure how much he'll get out of it. If nothing else, he'll get a lot of kids and the teachers all talking all around him.

Re: It seems then that you're well on the right track! Just keep at it & don't give up. . .

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

On the reading front --- don't let that burden rest solely on your shoulders. I mentioned that I was the youngest of seven. I don't recall my parents reading to me ever (an, aside from that, my father was illiterate so that wasn't a possibility. But he was very good at math and would help me in that area. . .) and thus I think my siblings read to me just so as to shut me up and get me out of their way (LOL!!!). So I did benefit from having a lot of brothers and sisters who would read to me on their "down time" and you should see if you can, some how, enlist the help of others --- even if it's just an older child or teenager. And then I might suggest using some of the same books. After awhile, because my siblings read some of the same books to me over and over, well, it got to the point where I could, easily, anticipate the plot and even the words.

And what do you think of graphic novels? I'm a big fan of them and while librarians claim they are mostly targeted to teenagers, I've seen a few that I think could appeal to the younger set.
For instance: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. has a series of "Graphic Mythology" that I just adore even though they're meant for kids (yes--- you will see me in the Children's lit section of the library sometimes, nearly wrestling graphic novels that I want to read out of the hands of the children. OK, I'm not THAT bad --- heh, heh. . . ). I mean kids today don't know how lucky they are as there are graphic novels of so many classic books. I even saw one today of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (could have used that when I was struggling with that play when I had to read it in high school!) LOL!!!

And get some tapes of music so, again, the burden is not just on you all the time. I mean there's only so much one person can do and I do believe in the following African proverb:

"It takes a village to raise a child."

It most certainly does. So see who exists in your "village" or neighborhood who would be willing to help. And make use of your local library and see what kind of kiddie videotapes, DVDs, musical CDs, tapes, books, etc. that they have at their disposal. If I were a kid again I would have a field day as there's so much for them to choose from (compared to when I was a kid and the only thing that existed was stuff related to Seasme Street only. . .).

And it seems that our speech therapy problems were also related to repeated ear infections as well. I don't know why kids are so susceptible to them (my nephew had that problem to where he needed surgery. . .), but apparently that was part of the reason why I needed it, but --- truth be told, I still have hearing problems to this day. . .(must frequently ask people to repeat stuff sometimes or, at least, SLOW DOWN when they talk to me because I will, really, sometimes only hear "part" of what what folks will say if they're talking too fast or in a low tone of voice. . .)

And don't fret too much. I think there is a problem when even professional experts "compare" children so as to say, "Well, by age three he or she SHOULD be doing this or that. . ."

That ignores the FACT that all children are individuals and develop at their own paces for any number of reasons. This to say that, lo and behold, I really "took off" academically when I was placed in a class where I was allowed to learn at my own pace and then, just based on my reading skills alone, suddenly I was being placed in "gifted" classes. So who knows when he will match other children in certain areas, but then who knows in what areas he will simply surpass all others, if that makes any sense. . .

But don't fret--- and also remember girls do tend to take off faster than boys in a lot of areas so Maggie may end of being a bigger help to Jamie than you may ever realize. . .