Amy began her second week of speech therapy this week. I sit on the couch and let the therapist work her magic for 30 minutes twice a week. She's teaching her a little bit of sign language which I am not totally for, but it's not a lot of signing. She's taught her how to say "more cookies please", "fish", "apple" and some others. She brings Amy snacks and encourages her to use her words if she wants another snack. I practice her signing with her at home while also encouraging her to use her words when she needs or wants something.
The two of them play with a train and the therapist shows her pictures of objects, encouraging Amy to look at her mouth while she says the word. She's impressed with Amy's jaw movement and how well she uses her tongue to chew, etc. The words will come, she tells me. (I'm still not concerned.)
The thing I realized this past week and I think the therapist realized it too, is that Amy just doesn't want to talk. She's not ready. Diana wasn't ready at this age. She knows how to ask for more cookies or Goldfish crackers, but instead she whines and points to them. We remind her to use her words and after a little bit of encouragement, she signs for them. The therapist says that she has several kids who are in the same phase as Amy and they don't seem to want to talk either.
While the girls were at Camp Gramma V, Diana taught Amy to say "Dada" so now everytime Matt comes home, he asks Amy who he is. When we sit down to dinner, he looks across the table and asks her who he is. "Dada" she replies. He chuckles. I just remind him who her favorite is...he shrugs because he knows the answer to that is me.
Amy's vocabulary is slowly expanding. I just don't know that it's because of speech therapy.
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