language sample - 3 year 9 months

Here's a spontaneous language sample from a few weeks ago. I wanted to record him talking about going to the beach, as that seems to be his highlight from this summer. Enjoy!

Do you know the colors of our rainbow?

Every time I talk to Lucas about his colors, this song comes to mind: Colors of the Rainbow from Signing Time. I love it. I think it has a nice tune, and I think it's fun to sign the colors. Rachel Coleman (of Signing Time) is an amazing inspiration, and she writes a really great blog here.

Anyway, back to Lucas. He knows most of his colors now (except some of the more obscure ones). He likes to name the colors of objects. Sometimes he'll even say "not green, not blue, not white, not pink, it's purple." But, recently he has taken to naming the colors for objects one step further. The other morning when I woke him up before school (7 AM) to take him to Nate's mom's house for the day, he started listing car colors for several people in our family: me, Nate, Oma, Opa, Nanny, Granddad. And I was really blown away. I just had no idea that he stored that kind of information! He would probably list more, but two of his aunts' cars are silver, so I think he just ignores them, haha.

So, here it is. I had to prompt him a little, but you can definitely see the wheels turning! "Haha", by the way, is "grandma." That's one word that he can not say yet, so that is his approximation for it. Please excuse the nudy boy. It was one of those exceptionally warm spring days, and I was letting him enjoy it!! (*turn off the music player first*)

big french fry

Although he was never really gone, I feel like I finally have my husband back. For the last 9 months, Nate has been working hard on his National Board Certification portfolio, an advanced teaching credential. As soon as he drops it off at the post office tomorrow after school, he will be DONE! Then he has to take a test in June to prove his proficiency in Spanish and wait until November to hear the results. It's not exactly over, but his weekends spent working on the portfolio are over, so we went out to celebrate!

We went to Chili's, because we knew it would be Lucas-friendly and pretty quick. Lucas did really well too, and even sat in his high chair the WHOLE TIME! That doesn't always happen. We ordered him a kid's meal with broccoli as his side, because we knew that he would have a couple of Nate's french fries. Sure enough, as soon as Nate's burger came out, he asked for a french fry. But he was not happy with the small french fry he was given. He wanted a "big french fry." We weren't sure we heard him right the first time, but sure enough, that's what he was saying, and he was not happy until he got a "big french fry". He's definitely 2.

I am thrilled that Lucas is age appropriate right now in both receptive and expressive language. But, I always fear that he won't maintain that level. Our ongoing challenge in the coming years will be to keep it that way. Well, tonight confirmed for me that Lucas continues to progress in his language acquisition and usage.

Lucas is quite the flirt when we're out in public. He waves to people as they arrive and says bye-bye as people leave. Older people especially enjoy his waves. As one couple was leaving the restaurant tonight, a gentleman waved back and told him that he liked his "flashing light". It was very nice of him, and at least he didn't mention contacting outer space...

On the way home from dinner, I caught a little video of what Lucas regularly sounds like when he's narrating his own play. There are a few intelligible words, but mostly jargon. He's usually more understandable than this, but he is definitely trying to tell a good story here about the sun. You should be able to understand "bye-bye & sun". I also hear him reference a snowman at the beginning. Enjoy!!!

*Don't forget to turn off the music player to the right. This video is not captioned, because I don't know how I would caption jargon..."

mommy jacket off!

Oh blog, how I've missed you! It's been a while. That's not to say that nothing exciting is happening though! Here's an update on what's going on in the life of Lucas.

Lucas is starting to string together 2 & 3 word phrases, and his jargoning is starting to make sense to me! On Friday, when I took him to Nate's mom's house before work, he wanted me to stay, and he kept saying "mommy jacket off!" His 2 word combinations are much more spontaneous, and no longer consist of just "_____, please", etc. His vocabulary must be 300+ words now.

Did I mention that he's testing age appropriate in language? At the end of January, he was re-tested for his annual IFSP review, and the results were outstanding. I can't believe that he made up 2 years of language in 1 year! Now the trick will be keeping it that way! The language journey is far from over.

Lucas is definitely 2! And he's so much fun! It's really enjoyable to watch him engage in pretend play. He picks one of his animal "friends" and he'll read to them, cook for them, take them for a walk, etc. He even wanted to give his bear a bath the other day. He will also imitate situations, like conditioned play and being placed in time out. He'll take the peg puzzle I use with him to do conditioned ling responses, and hold up the pieces to his ear as he says the lings (unprompted). He'll also take his "time-out" chair, put it against the wall, sit in it, and yell "no, no, no"! It's definitely time to carefully watch what we say and do around him!

His music class must be paying off, because today I noticed that he was singing the isty, bitsy spider. I got it on video... so enjoy his *singing*! You will have to use your imagination a little bit, but you should be able to understand "itsy", "spider", "sun", "wash", "out". I think the spider gets washed out a little much in his version though, LOL!

On March 31, Lucas is finally having surgery at CHOP to repair his trigger thumb. We were waiting to see if we could combine it with another surgery he was going to have, but ended up not needing (yay!). I'm all about the two-for-one surgeries. Your prayers for an easy procedure and quick recovery are appreciated! (both are anticipated)

how many words?

I have been estimating how many expressive words Lucas has for the past few months. I stopped counting when Lucas had around 50 words, mostly because I went back to work and could no longer keep up with it since my time at home with him decreased so significantly. Since it's almost time for his yearly IFSP review, and all of his therapists are busy doing their assessments, I thought I would do my own.

Yesterday I followed Lucas around all day long with pen and paper, and wrote down every.single.word he uttered. Just to clarify, I only wrote down different words, so I didn't write "no" 100 times, for instance. I also didn't count words that he only repeated when prompted. I only counted spontaneous words. It kind of reminded me of my days in grad school, in my educational research class. At least that knowledge is being put to use!

And the results are in... 106. Now, that number is not comprehensive for all the words he knows, but gives me a pretty decent indication of where the number falls. I had been estimating 150, and I think that's pretty accurate! I would now say 150-200, because I can think of about 50 more words that he knows that he just didn't say. I know he can identify various food items, body parts, outdoor vocabulary, etc., but the opportunity never arose yesterday, and I didn't do any extra prompting. I wanted the results to be as objective and unbiased as possible.

The results of my homemade assessment really just excite me. His language abilities are measuring at an age appropriate level, and I'm just so proud of him! I can't wait until the "official" results are in!

Lucas, how are you?

Daddy's been hard at work teaching Lucas to answer the question, "how are you?" Apparently, he's just fine!

linga ling ling

Linga ling ling, three cheers for the lings. It's official, Lucas can repeat all 6 ling sounds. It's always been kind of a frustrating point for me, because Lucas couldn't repeat them all, and wouldn't even play along with the ones he did know. It was not an accurate depiction of whether or not he was hearing across all frequencies... until now. It's a pretty major breakthrough, in my opinion.

The other night in the car, while I was trying to engage him from the driver's seat, I thought I would try the lings. He was able to repeat all 6 successfully, with the noise of the car, and me facing the opposite direction. I was pretty excited!

Hopefully he doesn't get too bored, and decide to tune them out. We'll have to come up with new conditioning games to keep it exciting. His hearing therapist is really great at that! For now, he likes to please and play along. I'm confident now that he's hearing across all frequencies! YAY!

cracker

I just had to get this one on video. He reminded me when he asked for a cracker this morning... and you know what kind of crackers he always wants? Just plain old ritz-type crackers. He's easy to please, most of the time. Enjoy the chuckle!

the great imitator

So, it's been a while. And it's certainly not because I don't have things to post about. I also don't like the "I don't have any time" excuse, because I believe you make time for what you want to make time for. Nonetheless, work has been really stressful for me the past couple of weeks, and by the time I put Lucas to bed, tidy up a bit, check my email and do some grading or planning, I'm exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch Thursday night with my computer on my lap at 9:00. I'm also about 2 weeks behind on my blog reading, in case you're wondering where my comments are. I feel totally disconnected.

Lucas continues to increase his spoken vocabulary daily. I've pretty much stopped keeping track, because it's gotten to be too hard to do! I think he's at about 80 words. His speech therapist says she'd expect sentences pretty soon, because he has all the necessary parts down: nouns, verbs, polite words, greetings, pronouns, and directional words. I still marvel every day at his progress.

Last Wednesday, he had his 9-month post-activation mapping appointment and speech evaluation. His map was tweaked a little bit, and speech was not surprisingly really pleased with his progress! Nate and I left CHOP commenting about what a good day it was for a change. We don't go back until the beginning of January for his ANNUAL evaluation. Wow. It's almost been a year.

So, I decided that a funny Lucas video would do for today. Master Lucas has become the great imitator, especially of his daddy. It is now time for us to start to censor what we do and say around him. Enjoy the following video of Lucas imitating his daddy blowing his nose. I promise you, that's not exactly what it sounds like. Lucas thinks so though.

riding in the car

Riding in the car has always been a challenging environment for Lucas to keep his processor on (and for all young CI kids). And, although he has his moments, he generally has been leaving it alone, yay! Even on the way to and from toddler group (20 minutes each way), he doesn't touch it. I hope it's a new trend.

I noticed today in the car that he was falling asleep, and I really wanted him to wait until we got home. So I decided to try and verbally engage him, which usually isn't possible, and I didn't think would work anyway, because of the noise of the car, etc. Surprise, surprise.

I sang "if you're happy and you know it," and he perked up to clap his hands, stomp his feet, and shout hurray. Then I sang "the wheels on the bus" and he did some of the motions too. For the last part of the trip, until we got home, I asked him to do different things, like "say hi to mommy," and "point to the trees."

Needless to say, we made it home without him falling asleep, and I just realized that my baby can understand me in the car. Talk about exciting! It's no longer wasted time. That is, if he continues to leave his ear on. :)

yes and no

Lucas has officially learned to say the word no. There's no going back with this one! I love that he always nods too. Enjoy the video!

wait time extended

In the academic world, we hear about a strategy called "wait time" quite often. The idea is to ask a question and wait a few seconds for all students to process before calling on someone to give an answer. In the same sense, we are taught to use "wait time" with our deaf children who are learning to listen, to give them input and wait for a response, instead of modeling the response right away. Some like to call it the "power of pause." An example is to ask Lucas, "how big is Lucas?" and wait for him to raise his arms and vocalize before imitating it and answering "so big!"

I like to think of the last 8 1/2 months as "wait time extended." We have given constant spoken language input and just waited. And waited. And waited. And given more input and waited some more for a response. And right now, 8+ months post activation, he's really starting to give it back. Sometimes I thought these days would never come.

Before Lucas was implanted, I always secretly hoped that he might have really quick success. That hasn't exactly been the case, although he's certainly making progress within normal limits. It's sometimes hard to remember that his hearing age is only 8 1/2 months.

I feel like we finally have a toddler on our hands. We have a little boy that can walk and talk. We have a little boy who can intelligibly hear me whisper from 5 feet away. We have a little boy who can overhear the word "hoarse" out of context in a conversation and sign "horse." We have a little boy in front of whom we must spell some words. We have a little boy who can follow one step instructions, like "walk to..." "get the..." and "sit." We have a little boy who finally likes to imitate us both physically and verbally. Today his daddy got him to attempt an /l/ for Lucas!

It's been worth the wait. We couldn't be more thrilled.

interesting happenings

the neighborhood watchdog

Lucas is having a bit of a language explosion. His speech therapist pointed out that if I'm having trouble keeping up with the running lists on this blog, he's probably having a bit of a surge. Just in the past week, he has added dat - that, uh hu - uh oh, no, mah - mine, eye, hel - help, and rou rou - round & round. He's also changed the way he says banana to a very clear "nana."

Lucas also now says "uh" for both up and down. Hmmmm... we need to work on that one. I have no idea why he started that. We just keep reinforcing the correct words.

Okay... if you look at his signs list on the sidebar, it continues to expand, although he has not seen signs from us in maybe 2 months? Last week he added bear, truck and water. This week he added baby, help, silly and banana. And... I got some of these signs by just prompting, "Lucas, how do you sign ____." That's how I found out he can sign silly and help. He never did those until I basically asked him if he could. Strange.

Lucas has been doing well with identifying body parts, mostly on faces. He will point to his own, and to those in a book or on me. Last night before bed, he found one of his books on body parts, and basically read it to himself. He'd open a page with a belly button on it and pull up his shirt to point to his belly button, etc. So, I then decided to further test his knowledge. I asked him where his hand, leg, toes, feet, and tongue were, and he correctly identified all parts, with this little smirk on his face like "hahaha, you didn't think I knew these, did you?" All of this constant repetition is really paying off.

Another really cute thing he is doing is a bunny "sound." Whenever we do animal sounds, I always ask him, "How does a bunny go?" (knowing that I have no good answer). I then scrunch up my nose repeatedly like a bunny nose. He's now imitating it by opening and closing his mouth. I need to get it on video. It's so cute!

Lastly... for your viewing pleasure, here's a video of our baby who is finally not only walking, but walking in circles. If you listen closely, you might be able to hear him say "rou rou" for round and round and round. Repeating words in threes seems to really be working. Sorry the video is so dark - I take these video clips on my still camera and there wasn't a lot of light at the time. Also, I think his "ear" had just fallen off in all of his silliness... the wig tape had lost its stickiness for the day. The video is not captioned, because it's just baby jargon, and I don't know how to caption that anyway.

bedtime book routine

Do you remember this post? It's the one about Lucas pushing away all the books he doesn't want to read at bedtime until I pick the right one. Well, things have changed a little.

I talked about how I was looking forward to when Lucas could walk to the bookshelf, and pick out the books he wants to read himself. Lucas is quite mobile on his feet now, so our bedtime book routine has changed to look something like this...

Mommy: Let's read a book!

Lucas: hmmm (points to book)

Mommy: (picks up book after book until she gets the right one)

Lucas: (gets excited and giggles)

Mommy: In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon, and a picture of...

Lucas: (wiggles down from Mommy's lap and toddles over to a toy to play, giggling)

Mommy: Lucas, walk back to Mommy. Let's read a book.

Lucas: (walks back to Mommy, picks a new book himself. Repeats several times, getting off of Mommy's lap and picking a new book.)

Mommy: Five shiny stars were twinkling at the cat.... looking very pretty in the sky like that...

Lucas: (turns to the last page, where Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star plays... bobs his back and forth to the music)

Mommy: All done? Okay. Night, night. Time for bed. (turns out the light, begins to sing Lucas a lullaby)

Lucas: (rips his ear off before Mommy finishes singing...)

Hmmmmm... do you think he's trying to tell me something? Maybe I shouldn't quit my day job and become a singer, but am I really that bad? Well, it's at least become evident that Lucas wants his sound off as soon as the lights go out, a little to my dismay. I put it back on to say "I love you," and then it comes back off.

Bedtimes are my favorite time of day with Lucas. I love the extra special Mommy/Lucas time that it provides. I love the language opportunities. And I love to watch him toddle around his room, especially with the extra big nighttime diaper that makes him look so cute in his pajamas.

Here are a couple of things Lucas is doing now with books. In addition to walking to get the book he wants and bring it back to me, and rocking his head back and forth to the music he hears in certain books, he will also point to objects when prompted. His favorite thing to do is look for the mouse in Goodnight Moon. He thinks it's hysterical when he finds it. So cute! He will point to objects and say and/or sign them too.

He doesn't like to cuddle quite as much as he used to before bed (as is evident with him pulling his ear off and wiggling around), but he still lets me get in my 500-a-day kiss quota, so I'll take it for now.

Yep. My baby is growing up. But I love this new stage!

We have to do what?

I never thought I'd be able to say this. Lucas hears and understands us so well, that we have to spell words around him. Yes. Around our deaf son, we have to spell words. U.N.B.E.L.I.E.V.A.B.L.E.

I mean, it's not that he understands everything that we say, but enough! His favorite things right now are going outside and going for a ride in his beloved car. This car:

So, we have to spell "outside" and "car". That's it so far, but I'm pretty excited about it. Again, I take nothing for granted with him.

Here are a couple of other recent Lucas observations:

He is walking much better and can even stand for extended periods of time on his own (see above picture!). I'm soooooo thrilled about that. He's not exactly functionally walking, but he's getting there!!!

The other day, Lucas was resting his head on my shoulder and the room was completely silent. One of our cats walked into the room and quietly meowed. Lucas sat straight up and looked for the sound. I was impressed.

I've been whispering around Lucas to see what he can understand. When I whisper "let's go find Daddy," Lucas signs "daddy." I'm so excited that he can hear me whisper.

I'm still waiting for a spoken language explosion, but Lucas is consistently saying "up," "down," and "bye-bye."

Cochlear implants are amazing. I really never thought his would work this well. But it does, and I am soooo grateful.