A Milestone!

Something major happened this week. Something that has never happened before in H’s life. For the first time ever, he was able to tell me something that happened at school that upset him.

You guys, this is a HUGE deal!! Every parent of a child with complex communication needs worries that their child won’t be able to tell them something important that happened while they were apart.

I’m not going to share the details because I will always respect his privacy, particularly with “the hard stuff”. The teacher let us know he had a hard time at one point during the day but they weren’t sure why and I was able to ask him about it when he got home. He was able to tell me how he was feeling at that time (this alone is amazing!) and what he said afterward didn’t quite make sense without any context but then the teacher emailed me more information about what had been going on and I realized he had told me exactly what had upset him!

So, in short. Wow. 1) Talking about big emotions – win. 2) Being able to tell me what caused him to feel that way/what he was thinking about at the time. Huge! Exciting things are happening!

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Challenge: Learn to use the Talker!

[Image shows papers on a table, including a list of words, instructions for the challenge, and monthly calendars.]

In January, I took part in the Speak for Yourself “Learning to Speak AACtion Plan” challenge. This was a 12 week crash course of mini-lessons in learning to speak using H’s Talker. Each week there were just 5 words to learn and each day there was a 5 minute activity to help me learn where the words were. H didn’t have to be involved – this was just to help *me* become familiar with the location of the words on his Talker. It was fabulous! I loved checking in each week and I gained a lot of confidence using the Talker.

With the start of Kindergarten I want to rekindle the motivation. Like a New-School-Year’s-Resolution!