Another Vocab Update

 

It has been a few weeks since I gave an update on Ben and his speech progress!

 

To start, we had our follow up appointment with the Ear Doctor.  The fluid that was in his ears before has completely cleared up, and the hearing test proved his hearing is perfect.  This was such a relief.  Greg had a lot of ear problems as a child - lots of tubes which resulted in scarring and long-term (but minimal) hearing loss...or, you know, "selective hearing" that I think a lot of husbands suffer from - so we were both relieved that Ben didn't have the same issues that would require the tube procedure.

 

We are continuing to meet with Ben's speech therapist an average of one time/week.  The majority of our meetings focus on different strategies to help encourage Ben to talk.  It's pretty interesting how some kids (like Ben) can get through an entire day without really NEEDING to say many words.  We generally give him milk and food before he has an opportunity to ask for it and we know exactly what he wants and doesn't want by the way he points at or runs away from something.  When we ask him a question, he will generally answer with "uh huh!!" or "no ma".  So one focus is on attempting to create situations where he will have to ask us for something.

 

Another strategy we have learned is to "OWL".

 

 

“OWL to Let Your Child Lead”
Observe
Wait
Listen

Research has shown that children learn language best when they are allowed to lead a conversation and communicate about what interests them. The OWL strategy will help you follow your child’s lead so that he’ll be more likely to stay in the interaction with you and get the practice and feedback he needs to build his communication skills.

(From http://www.hanen.org/Programs/For-Parents/It-Takes-Two-to-Talk.aspx)


With that said, Ben continues to surprise us with words and sentences when we are least expecting it!  A few weeks back, while playing in his room, Ben brought over his now-snug bear suit and gestured that he would like me to put it on him.  He then started to pull shoes out of his shoe bin and tried to put them on his feet.  He then stated very clearly, "put shoes on and go bye-bye".

He has regularly been saying "up" and "off".  Last weekend he said "close the door".  In the car, he will point at the door and say "this is a door", or to the road and say "this is a truck".  (He often will point to items and say "this is a _______").  He said "nana" for banana, and "open" referring to the car door.

Another new trick of his is to repeat several words we say in a row.  For the LONGEST time, when babies months younger than he is would do this, Ben would essentially REFUSE to repeat a word after me.  Suddenly, a few weeks ago, he would repeat 10-15 in a row, including some words he had never tried to say before.  He now happily agrees to do this with me every day.

He still is not at all interested in saying animal sounds and has never attempted to sing, but he LOVES when we do them for him.  Yesterday in the car, Greg and I both were singing the alphabet song to him at the same time and Ben thought it was HILARIOUS and awesome.  I also noticed that he loves to hear the birthday song sung, as it is usually sung as a crowd of people, so we will try to simultaneously sing songs to him more often.

I'm eager to discuss his speech development with his doctor later this month at his 2 year check up.  While I still do not feel like he is talking as MUCH as some of the kids his age, I also can recognize that he likely talks MORE than some of them.  And he definitely talks a lot when he has something specific to say :)