Recent Developments

On the talking front, Sean continues to add words for his favorite things. The more motivated he is to get something, the more likely he is to use the word. He uses words to request all his foods, as well as the TV shows he likes and his favorite rough-housing activities. When he is in the right mood, he will try to repeat every word you say. He can say all the vowel sounds and can repeat the alphabet, except for G, J, M and N. Now, we are working on 2-word phrases using the words he knows and uses often. So instead of just "cookies" he must work on saying "eat cookies" or "open door" instead of just "open." So far, he uses two phrases, "bye-bye, baby" and "bye-bye, pee-pee."

We have finished the supervised part of the play therapy with Sean's psychologist. She thought he did very well. The biggest development to come from that therapy is that Sean can now play ball with another person. Before, he would catch the ball and then just throw it in any direction. In fact, if you were asking him to throw the ball to you, he would deliberately turn around and throw it in the opposite direction. Now, he wants to engage another person and take turns. That alone was worth the extra doctor's visits to me.

Sean has developed a few very important skills recently. He has learned to generalize labels. I breath a sigh of relief there because this has been a huge barrier to learning for him. Before, Sean could grasp that the picture of a dog I was showing him was a "dog," but he couldn't understand that a different picture of a dog was also a "dog" or that a figurine of a dog was also called a "dog." That made working on vocabulary very frustrating for all of his teachers and therapists. Now, he gets that a dog is a dog is a dog.

He has also learned to take a breath and concentrate. Before, when you handed Sean a puzzle piece, he would just jam it in the closest hole and keep trying holes until it fit or until he got frustrated and quit. Now, Sean takes the piece and carefully considers where it is supposed to go. This development led to an even bigger development-understanding matching. I had been trying to teach him the concept of matching pictures to identical pictures but I could never get him to concentrate on the picture long enough to figure out which ones were the same. Now he can match successfully choosing from a field of two and a field of three. I will be testing him using a larger field soon, but I think he will pass with flying colors. We will also begin the more difficult task of matching objects to pictures. Along the same lines, he also been sorting identical blocks by color.

Sean had a physical therapy evaluation last week. The therapist concluded that he does not need physical therapy. His gross motor skills are where they need to be. She was concerned about Sean walking on his tiptoes much of the time, but she found that he has no physical limitations that would keep him from developing a normal stride. In other words, Sean chooses to walk on his toes because he likes the way if feels, and the good news is he doesn't seem to be doing any damage to his feet or legs with his toe-walking. She suggested that we might want to break that habit before Sean starts kindergarten. They make braces that are specifically for kids who choose to walk on their toes. She said that a few weeks in the braces generally breaks the habit for good.

Sean starts preschool in 2 weeks. He will go four days a week. He'll see a speech therapist two of those days and an occupational therapist the other two days. He will also continue to get ABA therapy and OT outside of preschool. We are hoping that the progress will continue and with the added therapy perhaps he will progress at an even faster pace.

Updated Word/Sound List

A-A ("ay"), ah

B-bob, ball, bee, banana ("nanana"), bye-bye, baby, buzz, bounce ("bow")

C-cup, cat ("tat"), cool, cookie, car, C ("see")

D-Dad, do, dog ("gog"), down ("dow"), D ("dee")

E-eat ("ee"), Eli ("E.I."), E ("ee")

F-fall, flip, film

G-ga-ga, go, goat

H-ha, hoo-hoo

I-ice, I ("eye")

J

K

L

M-meow ("beow"), movie

N

O-oh, open

P-pee, piano ("iano"), pop, poop, pee-pee

Q

R-R ("ar")

S-shhh, school, spin

T-tee

U-uh, up

V

W-water (wa-wa), woof-woof

X

Y-yogurt ("gogurt")

Z-Z ("zee")

Updated Word/Sound List

A-ay, ah

B-bob, ball, bee, banana ("nanana"), bye-bye, baby, buzz, bounce ("bow")

C-cup, cat ("tat"), cool, cookie ("cookie")

D-Dad, do, dee, dog ("gog"), down ("dow")

E-eat ("ee"), Eli ("E.I.")

F

G-ga-ga, go, goat

H-ha, hoo-hoo

I-"i"

J

K

L

M-moo, meow ("beow")

N-nah, nee

O-oh

P-pee, piano ("iano"), pop, poop

Q

R

S-shhh, school

T-tee

U-"ue," uh, up

V

W-water (wa-wa), woof-woof

X

Y

Z

Best Day Ever

"Best Day Ever."  That is what his daily report card said Friday.  Sean used the words to name 23 of 24 vocabulary cards and he used the sign for the one card he didn't name, "shoes."  And did he do it just once?  Oh no!  His speech therapist was so blown away she brought the preschool teacher and Sean showed off by naming all the objects, again.

He also had great days at Occupational and ABA therapies this week.  He was in a really great mood all week and that always improves his performance.  I have a sneaking suspicion the good mood may be in response to the new house.  I think Sean is pretty excited about the move and he really seems to like the new house and his new yard.

We have started another new therapy.  It is a child-directed play therapy recommended by his psychologist.  I went to a class to learn the techniques and I do it at home.  The therapy is geared around increasing social interaction and spontaneity.  It also helps teach "normal" social interactions.  The great thing about this therapy is anyone can do it with him.  In fact, the more people, the better since we want Sean to enjoy socializing with everyone and not just me and Jonathan.  So the next time his grandparents visit, they can take 15-20 minutes and give it a whirl.  

Keeping Steady

Sean's improvement comes in spurts.  Things were pretty slow the last few weeks.  We worked mainly on maintaining the words and sounds he had been using.  Tonight, Sean knocked our socks off by answering correctly what sounds a dog, cat, owl, and chicken make.

He has been doing fine at school and his ABA therapy is progressing.  Unfortunately, his improvement at Occupational Therapy has come to a crawl.  It seems to be mostly related to his attitude.  When he is in a good mood, he can do the tasks asked of him fairly easily. But lately he has been in a bad mood at OT and is very obstinate about performing the tasks.  He seems to have decided the whole thing bores him.  He even gives the therapist repeated fake yawns, and the appointments are at 10 a.m. so I know he is not actually tired.  Boredom is always a huge obstacle with Sean.

At his psychologist's urging, we have started a new kind of play therapy with him.  It is designed to help him with his imitation and social skills.  I like the ideas behind it and am excited to see if he makes improvements with it.

He has added "hi" to his vocabulary but he doesn't often use it spontaneously.  He also has a near perfect "cookie" which he does use spontaneously.

He's Bloomin' Like an Onion

Sean has been improving by leaps and bounds in the talking arena.  He adds words everyday and imitates sounds left and right.  Now, his pronunciation isn't perfect and he has trouble with initial consonant sounds, but the pace of his improvement is really fantastic.  Some of the words he uses spontaneously to express his needs or wants, some he uses only when he sees a visual prompt, and others he merely imitates.  I'm sure there are more that have only popped out once or twice.  He has also picked up a whole bunch of signs as well.

Here is a list of words and sounds we have heard in the last week.  The ones in bold are words that he uses spontaneously.

A-ay, ah

B-bob, ball, bee, banana ("nanana"), bye-bye, baby, buzz

C-cup, cat ("tat"), cool, cookie ("cook")

D-Dad, do, dee, dog ("gog")

E-eat ("ee")

F

G-ga-ga, go, goat

H-ha

I-"i"

J

K

L

M-moo

N-nah, nee

O-oh

P-pee, piano ("iano"), pop, poop

Q

R

S-shhh, school

T-tee

U-"ue," uh

V

W-water (wa-wa), woof-woof

X

Y

Z

And I am completely taking advantage of his willingness to learn words by teaching him "I love you."  He knows he likes to hear me say it to him and he knows I like to hear him say it.  He's getting close.  We end our nights with "i wuv ew."  It's great.

He Loves School

Sean has a pretty set routine in the mornings.  He gets up, drinks a cup of milk and wanders around the house reacquainting himself with all his favorite things.  Eventually, he gets impatient and starts searching me out with an expectant look on his face, sometimes holding the TV remote. I ask him what he wants and he responds "Bob," for Bob the Builder.  It's one of the few words he uses regularly so we make him ask by name.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I asked what he wanted and he responded "school."  I was almost in tears when I had to explain that today was not a school day.  He took it well, though, and settled for some Bob on the TV.

Papaw, you wondered how long until he asked to go to school.  The answer was just a little over a month.

Preschool

Sean has been doing very well in preschool. For the last several weeks, he has been completely tear free at school. He transitions between circle time, story time, craft time, and speech therapy without problems and he even knows exactly which chair is his. He has been earning all goods every day!

Sean continues to use more sounds and more words everyday. He has been surprising us everyday and I think he is even surprising himself sometimes.

His speech therapist called me last week to tell me that Sean has met all his initial receptive language goals. We had to come up with new things to work on. I was very excited. He is still not doing well on the horn series, though. He has just started to figure out how to blow air out with force. That's something he will keep working on.

It's All Good

Sean gets a report card of sorts every day at preschool.  On Monday, he got his first one that had all "Good" marks.  Sean continues to follow along during song time and he transistions from activity to activity very well.  His only problem is story time.  If the book doesn't catch his interest by the first page, he tries to escape.  They apparently have this issue with all their three-year-olds.  

Sean has also started behavioral therapy.  We have had four hours so far.  I am reserving judgement, but Sean is not responding to the therapy all that well.  From what I have read, it may take some time for him to adjust to the methods.  As an observer it confuses me.  Even I don't always understand what the therapist wants Sean to do.  But the therapist was recommended to me by two other therapists so hopefully, it will work out.

Another Great Day

Sean did great at preschool and speech therapy today. There were still tears when he got dropped off, but they didn't last. His teacher is very impressed with Sean's ability to follow directions, take turns, and transition from one activity to another. I am impressed with how some of the things he is learning from other students are showing up in his daily life outside of the classroom. The most noticeable is dancing. Sean has always loved things that play music but he hasn't been much of a dancer. Since he started preschool and dancing to songs in a circle, he has started dancing to the music he plays at home. I am trying to catch it on video. His Elvis-like hip gyrations are pretty funny.

Sean did better on some of his oral motor exercises. He was able to "kiss" a bubble more than 90% of the time. This is exactly what it sounds like. The therapist blows bubbles and Sean tries to kiss the bubbles in the air. All the therapist wants to see is Sean making the proper kiss mouth movements. He doesn't actually have to catch the bubbles, but he doesn't know that. He tried to blow the whistles and kazoos again but still can't actually make sounds.

He did very well on his receptive language lessons. Those are simple exercises in following directions with verbal prompts. He did well with pointing to body parts, and he blew us all away by demonstrating that he has some basic understanding of colors. Overall, a great day!

Sean the Artist

Occupational therapy continues to go very well. The therapist wants to expand Sean's control over his senses by introducing him to a lot of sensory input in controlled settings. One tool she uses is a swing. I warned her that Sean was scared of swings, but she wanted to see how scared. On the second visit, she took him into the room with the big swing and Sean lost it. He was screaming and trying to climb on me to get away and this was just after seeing the swing. She wasn't even suggesting that he get on it.

Well, fast forward three sessions and Sean is swinging sitting down, laying down, standing up, on his belly. You name it, he's doing it. We just took it slow each session. Showing him how you make the swing go back and forth. How you sit on it. How Karen, the therapist, likes to swing. How Mom likes to swing. He started to imitate us and before long he was enjoying it. He even branched out on his own, figuring out how to make the chains twist together and make the swing go round and round.

He has made similar progress with coloring. He has always had an aversion to crayons. Anytime we would try to show him how to color, he would just switch off and ignore us. That's how he acted at the first therapy session, too. At the second session, he would at least hold the crayon. By the third, he was coloring a few very light lines at a time. At last week's session, he took a crayon from the tub on his own and colored this puppy dog. When Karen asked him to move to coloring some of the shapes, Sean followed her directions willingly. And his new skills are transferring outside of therapy. While we were in his behavioral therapist's waiting room, Sean sat down at the kids' table and colored on his own happily. This is one of his "drawings" that he did just for fun at the last therapy appointment. He chose the colors himself (and put the crayons away when he was done, by the way) and seemed to be taking great care with his design.

Karen considers Sean to have mastered his goals with the crayons. He holds regular crayons correctly and consistently applies the right amount of pressure. He can follow her lead and draw a straight line and a circle. Later on, he will have more complex goals but for now he gets a big checkmark in this particular box. She is very impressed with his progress.

Back to School, To Prove to Dad that I'm No Fool

Sean's second day was a little bumpier. The shock had worn off and he was a little ticked off to be abandoned again. He was pitching a fit when I dropped him off, but as the teacher's aide was walking him to the building a group of cute little girls enveloped him and they seemed to cheer him up.

The teacher said he continued to imitate the other kids in song time, but he didn't care to listen to story time so the teacher chose that time to do her one-on-one work with Sean. He still did well with his turn taking and his attentiveness.

And he was talking everyone's ear off. Unfortunately, he was telling everyone he wanted to "go home." I am happy that when he really wants something, he is willing to use his words.

Occupational Therapy

Sean has had three occupational therapy sessions, and I am very impressed with his progress. The therapist goes over the same lessons every session, including coloring, using scissors, lacing beads and putting together puzzles, and every session Sean gets better and more independent with the tasks. Here is an example of a "craft" project he did. Sean tore up the pieces of paper and some of them he cut with special orthopedic scissors. He squeezed the glue onto the paper and he pressed the pieces of paper into the glue. (Of course, he also wanted to pull all the pieces back off.) He mimicked most of the actions except squeezing the glue. He tried to do that one all on his own.

A Great First Day

Those were his teacher's exact words. There were tears when I dropped him off, but apparently, they were gone before Sean even made it down the hall to his classroom. When I picked him up, he was happy and relaxed.

Best news of all-Sean was taking his cues from his classmates. He sat quietly for circle time. All 25 minutes of it! He clapped to the songs when the other kids clapped. He stood up and jumped when the other kids jumped. That kind of peer modeling is exactly what we were hoping to see at preschool.

He also met with his new speech therapist today. She is taking two different approaches with Sean. First, she will be having him do oral motor exercises with a series of musical instruments. It starts with simple instruments like kazoos and whistles and each instrument in the hierarchy is harder to make sounds with. They will also require him to make very specific movements with his lips, tongue and cheeks. She thinks he may lack the muscle tone to actually form sounds correctly. After her first attempts with him, it appears she is correct. Sean attempted all three of the easiest instruments, and yet, he wasn't able to produce a peep.

Second, she will work with signs and vocalizations. Sean did a much better job on these lessons. I should interject here that we have been hearing quite a few new vocalizations from Sean and even a word here and there. He has been actively trying to imitate sounds and words that we use. Well, today he made spontaneous animal sounds including a dog's bark and horse's neigh when doing animal flash cards with the teacher. He also correctly used the signs "more," "eat," "sit," "stand," and "ball."

He got big smiley faces from both teachers for his attentiveness and turn taking. It really was a great first day.