Walking and talking

[lollardfish]

I posted this list of the signs that Nico knows and uses reasonably regularly. He's certainly aware of more signs and has a receptive vocabulary of hundreds more words, as one would expect. We really have pretty good communication now, all things considered.

What I really like is that the communication is getting more complex. "Pick that up and put it in the bath-tub," for example. "Come over here and have a drink." "Give mommy a kiss." All of these types of phrases have two components, and Nico consistently does the two of them right. We're beginning to see doubling up of signs, too. For example (20 minutes ago), "more potty" and then "all-done potty" (and then "dirty").

Since the first steps, he's been very stubborn about being on his feet, but the weather is pretty good today, so once he's done with his snack, we'll be out riding on the scooter. He fell off the other day (throwing a bit of a fit about changing directions) and skinned his chin, which was scary. We need a crash helmet and a scooter for a bigger boy, so have placed an order for the Radio Flyer scootabout, which looks good.

Comments

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Nico doesn't communicate with spoken words as yet. He has a few sounds he pairs with signs recently - a certain raised inflection with "help." An "m" sound with "more." There's been some signs of progress - more consonents, more imitation - that suggest he will eventually talk (some people with DS do not ever), but it's going to be a long slog.

In some ways, though, the key is to find a way to communicate, and having the signs has been wonderful. It's really transformed our relationship.

We use pretty standard "baby sign," which is based on ASL, but geared to mostly simple noun/verb phrases with a few complementary concepts like "more," rather than being the core of a whole language (ASL).