I've been reviewing Nolan's goals, which were set six months ago. Our overriding goal is for him to maintain both expressive and receptive language milestones on par with his hearing pears, and I would venture a guess that he is at least at peer level. As he is approaching his annual testing date, I thought I'd look over his goals again. The goals we set last May (for a 15 month old child) were:- Respond to name on a consistent basis and turn to parent's names on a consistent basis.
He doesn't turn to his name on a consistent basis, but this could be due to his age. He gets engrossed in things that are far more interesting than turning to his name. A hearing test in one week will verify that this is an attention issue vs. hearing issue.
- Respond to basic questions (i.e. "where is the ball?") with a sign or gesture.
Check! He will find anything with a known vocabulary and will point to it or bring it to us.
- Identify at least 30 nouns and 10 verbs by choosing picture.
Hmmm... He'll probably get 30 nouns, but he hasn't figured out the verb thing yet. Maybe we'll work on "jumping" and "sitting" next week!
- Identify 5 body parts on himself or a doll.
He can identify his nose, but that is it at this point in time. If you ask him where his mouth is, he'll point to his nose. If you ask him where is ears are, he'll point to his nose... another thing we're working on.
- Respond to "no."
Check! Though his response is usually to laugh and continue doing what he wants to do! Sigh...
- Engage in social games (i.e. Pat-a-Cake)
Check! He loves "ring around the rosie" and other games we play at home. He doesn't quite get the turn-taking idea of Pat-a-Cake.
- Follow simple routine directions (i.e. put ball in box).
Check! He likes to put things IN other items, so he understands that concept. He may or may not understand "on top" or "beside," but he's a little young for that.
- Use three words in addition to mommy and daddy
Check! Well, sort of. There is no "mommy," but we have daddy, light, doggie, meow, roar, ball, and uh-oh.
- Attempt verbal imitation
Check! He will imitate when he feels like it.
- Imitate bilabial p, b, and m in 2/3 of prompts.
Hmmm... He doesn't do /p/ yet, and /b/ is just emerging. He does say "mamama" in babble but doesn't consistently imitate 2/3 of the time.
- Imitate vowel/consonant combinations with t, p, and n (at, up, and on) in 3/4 of opportunities.
Not so much. He has no /t/ or /p/, so those are missing entirely. He does have /n/, but when he imitates "on" it just sounds like "aw."
- Imitate consonant/vowel combinations (t, d, m, n, p, and b) at 75% of opportunities.
Another one he won't do. He sometimes will imitate "mamama," but none of the others. We have no /t/ or /p/. We are just starting to get a /b/.
4 comments:
Thank you for sharing so much detail. My son is just a few months younger than Nolan and we are setting the same type of goals in speech therapy. It's nice to read about what you all are going through so we know more of what to expect.
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Luca really just started using mommy this last week, he's almost 18 months. So Nolan will get it, it just might come a little later. It's so cute when Luca says "mommy" and it's hard not to get him everything he wants just because he's saying it!
I went to the Hard of Hearing Conference 2008 in Colorado Springs last weekend and sat next to one of the top researchers in the HH community in CO, Dr. Christine Yoshinaga-Itano. Anyway, I was talking with her about language development in little boys and she said it is way different than girls b/c they are so engrossed in their gross motor skills and they actually have different milestones for boys.
Luca uses more words with my husband, like jugo (juice), abre (open), quiero mas... And she said husbands speak differently to their children, men use shorter frases when speaking to them. While women are more narrators and children like to listen. Maybe this explains why Luca says all these words to my husbands and it seems (at times) all I get are grunts and whins.
Do you find this with your kiddos?
Megan, I'm not too worried about the whole "mommy" thing, especially since my hearing kiddo couldn't say it until 2 1/2! We just got Nolan's test results back and he scored 108% on expressive language, so he's definitely "at or above" the level of his peers (with normal hearing)! I'm totally stoked.
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