We use signing with Olivia and we have found it to be a wonderful communication tool given that children with Ds have delays in their speech. Olivia is beginning to attempt to say more and more words now, but she has been communicating beautifully with us via sign language for 16 months. We rarely have a temper tantrum from Olivia that is communication related (of course she is Two years old and we get the I WANT MY WAY tantrums).
Signing has given us a closer relationship with Olivia than we could ever have imagined. We get to see a side of her that we would not see otherwise. The other day she heard me comment that I thought her godmother had some pain in her knees. I said, that I think her knees HURT. Olivia immediately started signing HURT and SORRY. As in, I am sorry that her knees hurt. I know that Olivia may not have understood what we were talking about for real, but she is trying to be a part of our conversations and is truly paying attention to what we are saying.
Maybe raising Olivia has not been "easy", but it certainly has been VERY VERY VERY GOOD!
Enjoy the video! I love this song! It says just how we feel about being able to communicate so well with Olivia even though we have to use a lot of signing at this point.
No comments:
Post a Comment