Cotton as I have mentioned before is non-verbal. Completely meaning he has zero recognizable words, he gives good attempts and does his best to mimic me, but if you did not know what I was saying you would have NO clue what he was saying. Mind you this is not in my opinion communication, but he really needs practice using his mouth to form said words (which he will eventually:)
Anyway my delima is how to get this practice without constantly prompting him, and ignoring his non verbal communication, (which I actually count as communication lol). My consultant came up with a good idea of using familiar songs, and stopping at a word and practice that word, and move forward making it fun. I am totally up for trying this, but it is so frustrating!!!! His ST has actually said he does not think Cotton has apraxia, because his oral muscles work fine, it is just the communication from the brain to the muscles to form words. I would take ANY real word at this point!! So I am going to try songs and more songs, if anyone has any great ideas, I am all ears.
2 comments:
I think the song idea is a good one. From the time Oliver was a baby I sang two songs to him consistently: twinkle, twinkle and you are my sunshine. He KNOWS the words to those -- they must be imprinted on his brain somewhere!!! Anyway, I did the same thing with him sometime back and was amazed that in no time he would sing both songs. Now as you know he still hardly talks at all but it is very nice to hear his voice sometimes. I know it is frustrating -- I have my share of that, too. But both of our boys will get there!! (this is the pep talk I owe you :-) Keep us posted on how the singing thing goes.
Oh, and you could also try nursery rhymes. London Bridge works for us and we do some emotion sharing games to go with it. ....
I don't know how much Cotton likes videos or kids'
CD's, but I know these two things helped one of my twins start echoing songs. (And at my house, echolalia is totally a goal.)
Something about hearing The Wiggles sing a song makes it much more attractive (initially). Once the song is really, really familiar, I can sing it myself, and G. will try to chime in. Right now, it's just a string of syllables, but it's a good start!
I also have a very annoying CD of common kids songs, like Old McDonald, which both the twins love. B. never tries to sing, but I'm hoping all the words are piling up somewhere in his brain.
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