Sunday, April 15, 2012

So much to learn

Nathan has much to learn as he "catches up" on language and communication.  It can be daunting at times.  I'm sure it frustrates him as well.  Everything must be taught...nothing is learned by just "overhearing" for a Deaf child.  Think about it...Nathan is learning English, sign language, social skills that are different from the first 6 years of his life, how to fit in a family...the list goes on and on.  It can be down right exhausting and a lot to expect from anyone.  My goal is to make learning fun...in essence to "play games".  This includes his weekly spelling list.

I'm not monkeying around about it either.


I'm always trying to think of new ways to present the same old boring thing.

Lisa

Monday, April 9, 2012

A start of a converstation!

Nothing and I mean nothing is as exciting to be able to communicate with your children for the first time...to ask a question (a question we've asked for 2 years) and have them ANSWER!!!! Yippee! Our family loves to share the highlight of our day with each other (okay Art and I do).

We started from day one asking Nathan what he liked best about the day - we finally had an answer.  We took Emily and Nathan to an Easter Egg Hunt at the local Children's Museum and on the way home were asking what the best part of the day was.  Emily of course chimed right in, right away.  Nathan was looking around and I wondered if he really understood what we asked.  We signed and spoke again and waited....and waited...and waited.  Apparently, he was really thinking about it.  He told us he liked looking for eggs above his waist! Had to chuckle because that was the rule for his age group - above the waist eggs only.  I asked if he liked anything else and signed "fire truck" (they have 1/2 of a truck for the kids to play on) and riding all the cars (they have all different types of transportation from around the world). Not complete sentences but enough "correctly" signed words that we all knew what each other was talking about.

Praise God - what an answer to prayer!  The whole communication thing is FINALLY starting to click....Nathan is such a hard worker and desperately wants to talk/sign with us.  He tries so hard.

Lisa

PS - we've been INCREDIBLY sick for over a month and blogging (sometimes just getting up) was beyond the scope of what I could do in the day. Starting to feel some better....lets hope it sticks this time!