Counting on success!

Yeah - so I don't really blog anymore, but I do want to keep track of Alex's progress, not only for my own sake, but for those who are coming along the journey after us.

So let's see, last month, Alex's ears turned 1.5 years old....

and OMG OMG OMG YAY YIPPY WAHOO...Alex is doing so well!

When Taylor turned 18 months old, she hit her language explosion.  She was a very early talker and by the time she was two, she was talking in paragraphs.

When Alex's ears turned 18 months old, we hit a language explosion too!  He says new words daily. He will repeat literally anything you tell him to.  He is starting to put two and three word sentences together and the concepts he understands is WAY beyond someone with a 1.5 year language level.

We still have oral tone issues and lots of articulation errors, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't matter right now.  Articulation can be taught at any time.  Language is the priority.  And this dude gets language.  He understands everything we tell him and he's getting pretty good at talking to us right back.

We've seen huge progress behaviorally too, and I'm pretty certain that is due to his ability to communicate better.   When he does melt down, it's often due to the fact he's trying to tell us something we don't understand (yet).  Or that he has to come in from outside.  That's still a 100% chance of a meltdown.

Even though Alex has articulation errors, we are seeing slow but steady progress.  He used to have issues making the OH and OO sounds.  He's completely mastered the OH sound and we are starting to hear the OO sound more and more often.  He struggles with bilabials like m/b/p and often substitutes them with n and d, but we've seen progress here too.  He can end words with m and with prompting will start words with m (like more and milk).  With prompting tools, he can make a b sound and just recently he started closing his mouth at the end of words like up and cup (which were just uh and cuh before).   His reverse swallow and his tongue are still in the way a lot and he needs lots of work there, but even his ability to lateralize his tongue has improved so much in the past few months. Overall, we are super pleased with his progress.

Another thing that has happened over these few months is we've realized that Alex has that ol' smarty pants gene, just like his sister.  I've kinda always assumed it was there, but with lack of language, it's harder to identify.  His memory is ridiculously good.  His problem solving skills are top notch, and just like with his sister, his ability to pick up letters and numbers came early and easy.

Recently, Alex has started counting on his own to 16.  For being in this hearing world for 1.5 years, I was shocked.  Heck, I know lots of 2.5 year olds (Alex's actual age) who can't count like that.

I've been trying to get it on video, but have been unsuccessful.  The other night during a diaper change (we haven't touched potty training yet...), he started counting, so I grabbed my camera.  I only got it started when he said "four" and it's not his best performance at all (his "ten" is awful - he normally says it super clear), but at least I have proof that this kid counts to 16.  I've watched this video a bazillion times in awe that my 2.5 year old deaf boy who has been hearing for 1.5 years is counting!  And although his clarity is far from perfect, I'm pretty sure anyone listening to him would know he's counting.



 So, at this stage of the journey, we are so happy!  We are so excited to see what Alex can do (besides say "eat more donut" super clearly)!  We are so proud of him.  And we love him oh so much!!