Encouraging Words

Today we had therapy and both of her therapists had good reports. First, speech therapy said they are finally getting to the point where Amelia will sit still long enough to go through speech exercises from a book. She also seems to be motivated by food. She went through a sheet with 20 consonant sounds today, doing groups of 4 at a time with goldfish crackers as her reward. She did not get them all right, but she tried on all of them. Just getting to this point is huge progress. Her therapist thinks that she is on the verge of very rapid acceleration on her speech. She seems to think by the time she is 6, she will be talking a lot and be a totally different kid. She often recommends when this explosion takes place that we take a 6 month hiatus from speech therapy. She will have the building blocks she needs to advance in speech on her own. This encourages me a great deal because 6 is when we want to send her to kindergarten and it makes me realize that there is hope that she will be ready.

Occupational Therapy reported that she rode a tricycle down the hallway approximately 50 feet without any help! OT is also working with her on making straight lines, identifying colors, and coloring inside the lines. She is also making good progress on the straight lines and coloring inside the lines. Identifying colors seems to be difficult for her. She can repeat names of colors, white, yellow, purple, but can't tell you what color anything is....

Here is a totally unrelated photo of Todd tickling his babies on the bed the other day.I love to hear her giggle!