Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Pin It

Widgets

Teaching Subtleties

Today was monkey girl's speech evaluation to see if she should stay in the program that works with her. Her two therapists were here and it was very brief. They already know her pretty well so they had answered most of the questions themselves and only had a few for us. The result was she's still about a month behind in her speech and so we had the option of keeping her in or discontinuing the program. I'd been thinking a lot about this for the last week and came to the conclusion that if she's allowed to continue then that would be in our best interest. I'm sure she's benefited from having them work one on one with her, in addition to the extra socialization she gets when they're here so why would I turn down anything that helps her. They were fine with my decision and even scheduled an extra two visits a month for the next three months (until her annual evaluation). I'm glad it's over, though we should have probably waited until the yearly evaluation anyways.

One of the things I asked the therapists about was whether it's okay if her words aren't always clear. They said it's fine for now since she's just started increasing her vocabulary. They're more worried about speech than articulation. That got me thinking about something that happened a couple of months ago and how monkey girl might be more worried about OUR articulation. It was late one night and the smoke detector started going off. I think it was the battery, but Dadda monkey thinks it's faulty. Anyways, the loud beeping was distressing to monkey girl so I showed her how to cover her ears with her hands and said 'ow'. She copied me and coped with it pretty well. For the next few days, every time she heard a loud noise, she'd cover her ears and say 'ow'.

Then one day we were reading a book and came across a part of the story where a new character was introduced, the owl. I pointed to the owl and told her what it was. She looked at me quizzically and I thought she was struggling with the word so I repeated it a couple of times to her. Monkey girl then looked up at me, covered her ears with her hands and said 'ow'. It was quite funny, but I wanted to clear up the confusion for her. I told her, no, it's like a tweet-tweet, but it's called an owl. She looked at me again and said 'ow' while covering her ears. I said, 'no, not ow, it's an ow-el', but she just wasn't getting it. Clearing up such a subtle difference has proven to be difficult and truth be told, we still haven't made the distinction. So in our family, owls apparently make loud annoying noises and when you come across one you need to point to it, cover your ears with your hands, and say 'ow'.

12 comments:

  1. Hi Jennifer-

    Love your blog and your children are adorable! I am just stopping by from last weeks FF. Sorry it took me all week to make it over but I am glad you stopped by my blog and I am happy to now be your newest follower.

    Have a good one! Halley
    http://missiondrivenmom.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Follow you through Follow Friday! You can follow me back at http://beyondmeasuring.blogspot.com

    Haha! Great story! Stick with it! She'll be right on track before you know it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. the owl this was cute:)I'm following you now thanks to Friday Follow! When you have time feel free to stop by my blog:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. We are your newest followers from Friday FOllow. :)
    You got some cute lil' monkeys.
    Hope you have a great weekend.

    The Moms @ Inspired Gifts
    http://inspiredgiftsblog.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Happy Friday Follow :) http://mommyandchild.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. follow you from follow friday!! I would love if you could come follow my blog!
    mylittlestgravesies.blogspot.com

    Have a wonderful weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great blog! I am your new follower...found you through Friday Follow! Have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jen, I love this story. Makes me smile all over again when I think of it. Give the babies a big hug from Grandma!!!!!! Love you guys!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Following and stopping by from Friday Follow. :) I hope you stop by and do the same!

    My 2 year old doesn't have a very wide vocabulary at all. We're thinking about taking her to a speech therapist because we don't know if there is something wrong or if she is just behind everyone else. Every other kid at her age is talking up a storm, but I'm a bit worried! Your kids are absolutely adorable!

    http://theartsymom.tk

    ReplyDelete
  10. What Adorable little 'monkies' you have!


    I found you on Follow Friday. What a great blog you have. I am your newest follower. Hope you can visit my blog and become a follower too!

    And feel free to enter our ERGObaby Infant Carrier Giveaway!
    http://thebabystoreplus.blogspot.com/2010/04/win-ergobaby-infant-carrier-then-get.html

    Anna

    ReplyDelete
  11. Following you from Friday Follow!

    Stop by and enter my giveaway for Rachael Ray Bakeware:
    http://extremepersonalmeasures.blogspot.com/2010/04/do-you-know-about-family-of-csn-stores.html

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your feedback!