The Dawn of a New Day

Since the dawn of time, or at least it feels that way, Thomas has hated to do flashcards with me. I tried everything to get him to "play" flashcards, body part cards, transportation cards, clothing cards, any type of cards -- you name it and I've tried it. He refused to play them with me.

Well, Ms. Sarah at school turned me on to a new approach. The approach is using the Chipper Chat. This toy is essentially a magnetic wand and magnetic chips. We take our flashcard decks out. I take about 5-6 cards at a time, usually all within a specific theme. I hold up the card and ask Thomas what is on the card. If it is something that he already knows, like a train, he says the word. Then I say the word back to him and describe the picture in more detail. If he doesn't know the word, I say the learning to listen sound or the word, and then he says it back to me. I then hand him a chip and he places the chip on the card. We go through the cards and then I give Thomas the magnetic wand. I then ask him to pick out each object by using the wand and allow him to pick up the chip. This gives me the opportunity to test his receptive language and gives him the opportunity to again express the word.

Here are a few quick videos of Thomas playing this with his sister, Sidney, and me:

Car


Puh-Puh, Boat


Whee-Whee, Slide


As I view these videos, I catch myself not doing all the things that Ms. Becky, Thomas' prize-winning AVT at Cooks, has told me to do during our training sessions each Friday. However, I can't kick myself too much because Thomas is making progress. I'm not a trained cert AVT...I'm a mom learning as best I can.

So as a close this video-packed post, I admit that I know that we will continue to take steps forward and backward. However, it is seeing videos like this of our little man that make me hopeful. They make me hopeful that continued tweaks to his CI map will make him speak with a more opened-mouth (thank you, Ms. Bari!). They make me hopeful that the lack clarity in Thomas' hearing world may be slowly disappearing and thus giving way to the bright light of talking. Whatever happens, I'm ready for the dawn of a new day with my little man!