So Smart!

 On a Sunday afternoon Family Walk at the River Walk by our home.

While on our walk, Olivia, in keeping with her true-self, smiled and waved at fellow walkers.  It is nothing for her to see someone at a distance and keep eyeing them and waving until they stop and interact. It is wonderful to see the smiles she puts on so many faces.  Just like she puts smiles on our faces!  But she likes to keep things at an acquaintance level with strangers.  No high fives for strangers.  Just talks to them, waves and smiles.

One older couple stopped to talk with Olivia. Olivia is a great conversationalist these days now that she has become a big fan of signing.  The older woman, impressed by Olivia's abilities, asked how old she was. 17 months! She said, Wow she does great!  Then as she started walking away, I said, Did you realize Olivia has Down syndrome?  She stopped, looked surprised, and came back to talk some more. Wow! She said! Typical kids don't even do that!  OK... Proud parents please stand up! So we, grinning from ear to ear in total pride, continued our conversation and dispelled the myths about Down syndrome.  We wonder if Olivia has a future in politics. She is friendly and loves to kiss babies!  And she is so smart!  Yes! We are so proud of her!

Olivia uses her signing with me all the time. Especially to tell me what SHE WANTS! And she can be persistent if I am taking a while to do what she wants. She woke up from nap and let me know she was both thirsty and hungry.  She lets me know when she is tired.  She lets me know when she wants to listen to music. And much more!  

I Know What I Want! (Communication)

I have invited Olivia's family and friends to send me a blog post this month (to make my 31 for 21 job easier). My wonderful husband, Daddy Peter, sent me this great blog post about Olivia communicating "What she wants!" Thank you Peter!!!!! XOXOXOXOX !!!!!

Olivia is definitely learning how to communicate what she wants and doesn’t want. She has begun to grab our hand or finger and move it to what she wants us to do. For example, she finds it quite funny and enjoyable for us to tickle her feet. If we stop, she will move our hand back to her feet to tell us to do it again. The flip-side is that Olivia knows what she doesn’t want!! If you sit down to read and you pick up the wrong book, she will, in no uncertain terms, let you know. It can be a process of trial and error until you happen upon a book she is interested in. When eating, if you put a piece of food on her tray that she doesn’t find desirable, she will pick it up and unceremoniously drop it onto the floor. It is encouraging to see her develop interests and preferences, and learn how to communicate them.

Peter

A few things I know! By Olivia

Hi Everyone! I wanted to show you a few thing I know how to do.

One, I know how to be cute!

Two, I know What Motorcycles do... Vroom Vroom
Three, I know how to say Hello Everyone by waving and smiling big!
Four, I know where my tummy is, and I know to rub my tummy when I am hungry.
Five, I know where my feet are! (They are in my shoes!) If you ask me where my shoes are, I will just sign shoes, but not show you where my shoes are.
Six, I know where my hair is.
Seven, I know how to make lots of sounds of the alphabet. Here I am making the P sound. (or maybe the F sound, Mommy cannot remember which one I was making at the time.)
So that is a little of what I have been learning in my home school. I don't think that I am really being home schooled, but I think it sounds very grown up to call it homeschooling! I have lots of friends who are home schooled. If you are good and you are home schooled you get a guinea pig named Bill! That sounds cool! So far I only have two cats and a neighbor named Bill, but I love them all!

Swallow Study and Communication

I never did post about the results of Olivia's swallow study. All is well! Yay! The only problem is low motility through the esophagus, which is causing the spitting up. This is a result of low muscle tone, and should clear up as Olivia gets more upright, crawling, standing and walking. As Olivia is doing the rocking on all fours, I see the problem beginning to get better. We are also taking breaks while eating to do all of her "tricks". By doing Monkey, So Big, and Motorcycle she moves around more and straightens up more and uses her muscles more so it helps things go down the pipes. When she drinks too quickly and starts coughing, we tell her to do So Big, and that helps. We were also told to thicken her water. We do this with a few tablespoons full of pureed baby food. We typically use the kind that comes in the squirt pouches, so it is easy to simply get it out of the refrigerator, put a few squirts into her straw cup and add a few ounces of water. It is harder to suck the thick water, and thus she takes more breaks. I have noticed that her rhythm for all drinking has become more "rhythmic" with alternating sucking and swallowing and breathing much better.

The speech therapist who did the swallow study took some time to interact with Olivia. Olivia showed off all her communication abilities like a pro! The therapist was really impressed by Olivia's excellent oral motor skills and fabulous total communication abilities. Olivia can sign: more, all done, shoes, hello, good bye, motor cycle, bunny, fish, monkey, touch down, wash hands, bath and tell us that she is hungry by rubbing her tummy. She knows where her hair is, her tummy, and her feet and shoes. She can say the sounds for the letters: short a, b, d, f, g, h, l, m, short o, p, short u, v, w. She can put some sounds together to communicate approximations of words, such as: apple, baby, flower, fan grandma, happy, Lorelai, mommy, daddy, cup, up, hop, pop, vegetable, puff, bath. Of course the words are just close approximations at this point. Flower is Fow-wa. Fan is "FFFF". Grandma is Gam-ma. Lorelai is "LLLL". Apple is AP.

All in all, I think she is doing good for a 16 month old with Ds when it comes to communication. We have read to her a lot since she was born, and we talk to her a lot and we work on sounds a lot. I think that my Montessori training has me programmed to say single sounds over and over again to Olivia. Daddy gets a lot of credit for all the communication that Olivia is doing. Olivia loves to mimic Daddy! So if Daddy is teaching, Olivia is learning! Way to go Daddy!