Homeschooler with Down Syndrome Signing "It's About the Cross"

This video is from a mom on my "local" homeschoolers with special needs email list. She is graciously letting me share her beautiful daughter Abigail signing "It's About the Cross" by The Ball Brothers.

Sometimes it is hard for me to imagine Goldie's future, both near and distant, because there are so many possibilities on a path that is always changing. Just when I was lamenting over Goldie's lack of fine motor skills in relation to her signing, this popped up on my screen. Watching Abigail reminded me to just be patient and that there are bigger things than how well my daughter can sign.

New Words

After Hank was born, over 5 weeks ago, Goldie pretty much stopped talking. She resorted to whining and only using the words Mama and Dada. Because she needed to get our attention before she began whining at us.

This week she has been amazing me with the words. Not only is she saying more words, but her speech is getting clearer. This blog also serves as my record of her milestones, so I'm going to bore you with the details.

Goldie refolded some laundry for me and I asked her "What happened here?" She replied very carefully, "I did that."

At lunch we ate "am" (ham) Her shoes are "white"

Tonight she was dividing her time among several baby dolls. Then I noticed that she was making one of them wave his hand while she said "bye". A lot of her words sound like "bah", but it was cute to see her bending the baby's arm.

She gives her little brother fist bumps and was blowing raspberries in his face today. If he is crying and you don't get him settled down fast enough, Goldie will find a binky for him.

Another thing that I noticed, she stopped looking at her books after he arrived. She also wasn't very keen on letting me read to her. The last couple of days she has resumed emptying the bookshelf. I found her engrossed with her books, pointing at the pictures and signing to herself. Its so nice to see that she has made progress beyond what she was doing when Hank was born.

Giving credit where credit is due

Goldie had her quarterly eval this week. I have to say it was fabulous! She has made so much progress in the last 3 months. She now knows over 100 signs and her speech is increasing slowly and steadily. Her fine motor skills have taken off and she is completing puzzles on her own along with beginning to draw. I could go on and on!

So, I was bragging about Goldie to a family member and their reply was "Are you going to do something in March, so she doesn't backslide, since you aren't sending her to preschool?"

Well, that caught me completely off guard. I explained, again, that our immediate family, has helped Goldie get to where she is today and we will continue to do so. And when I say we have helped Goldie, what I mean is that we give her opportunities and encouragement. Like you would with any child.

Goldie is the reason for her own success. I'm so tired of this idea that she would just be happy to sit and stare at the wall if it wasn't for Early Intervention. I remember reading books on DS when she was born that gave the very distinct impression that children with DS were not motivated to meet milestones or learn new skills on their own. Then the IFSP meeting came and the echoed those same thoughts. 2 1/2 years later I can say: what a bunch of BS!!


Here is our star! If you're wondering, she is putting cupcake picks into a pegboard to make a flower garden. Cute, huh?

Little Things

Goldie's done some really cool things this today and yesterday. They actually aren't so "little" to us.

1. She can not only climb the ladder to the slide and go down by herself, but she climb the slide. It was hysterical! She made the funniest noises as she worked her way up and we cheered. I got the camcorder and of course the battery was dead.

2. We went for a walk tonight and ran into the neighbor (about 30 ft from her house- this is important later) whose little boy also has DS. Goldie has not been to their house since fall. We decided to walk with her back out to the end of the road, almost a mile. On our way back, when we reached her house, Goldie looks at her and starts waving and telling her bye-bye. She knew it was her house! The thing is, she wasn't stopping at her house, so there was no talk of good-byes. Either Goldie knew we were in the general area where we met her or she has picked up on who lives where from our conversations in the van. Makes me wonder what else is going on in her head that I don't know about!

3. She put 2 signs together for the first time. I started teaching Goldie her letters by using the Starfall website. B is her favorite. I like the large, easy to read type for her. I knew the letter C had some nice big pictures that would be easy for her to see. Well, the cat page has a little cat that runs around the screen at the end and she just couldn't get enough of it. She kept signing "more cat"!

What do you want for breakfast?

I put Goldie in her chair for breakfast and asked what she wanted. I wasn't sure what I had to give her. We were out of her waffles and bananas. So I look over and she is doing her sign for popcorn and she says "pop". I was so excited! Now here is the part where I feel like crap. We had to leave for Kindermusik and I did not have time to make popcorn. She accepted cereal instead. When it was gone she signed more and said "mo".

The Vision Therapist came today and I filled her in on the new dr. While I was telling her about Goldie signing at breakfast she signed eat and said "eeeah".

This is big because when she started walking she stopped signing and talking. Its nice to see her words coming back. I think her low vision has also affected her ability to learn sign. She can't see movement well, so I don't know what our signs look like to her. We're going to start using picture cards as another communication tool.

Lisa left a comment asking about the treatment for Goldie's nystagmus. It will most likely be surgery. There is a procedure to move the null point and a tenotomy to lessen the jerking. After surgery, she will need more vision therapy to learn to use her new vision.

I always forget to write down the cute, witty things my kids say because I think I'll remember them. Then...well, you probably know how it goes. So, I thought I'd blog some things Goldie did this week before I forget.

As I've mentioned her fave food lately is popcorn. For a couple weeks the only time she would sign "more" was for popcorn. My mom sent a fresh supply of popcorn over and Goldie heard me announce this and got all excited. I told her when I was done cleaning up I would make some. A couple minutes goes by when she starts signing "more" and pointing at an empty cool whip container on the counter. I wasn't sure what she wanted so I picked her up and she starts lunging at the container. Hmmm.

That's when I remembered that 3 weeks ago my mom made some flavored popcorn and brought it over in that same container! So, her memory is better than mine?

Friday Goldie had her speech eval. The ST had some cards with drawings of people doing things on them. She asked if I thought Goldie could point to the correct picture if we named the action. I was curious so I said ask her and we'll see.

ST: Goldie, point to the picture of someone sleeping
Goldie: Kisses drawing of sleeping baby

ST: Can you point to the person eating? Where is the person eating?
Goldie: Licks the drawing of the girl eating ice cream

ST: Point to the person building with blocks
Goldie: Kicks the book

She cracks me up! We've been teaching her to kick towers of blocks, but I think she was just ready to be done with the eval.

Three

The number of ounces Goldie drank from a cup today! Finally! See, while Goldie can eat pretty much anything, she has a tough time managing liquids in her mouth. We've tried straws, open cups, water bottles, and sippies. She can get the water in, but it streams (or spurts)back out or her eyes get big, she sputters and chokes. I think because of this she became a very reluctant drinker. Who wants to feel like they're drowning? Up until recently I wasn't too worried about it because she nurses so much. But, now it means she nurses sooo much. The mim mims were her main source of liquids.

Then, this evening, I put a little too much salt on the popcorn and she guzzled 3 ounces of blueberry tea. (The PT laughed when I told her that's what I put in her cup. Seriously though, I make it myself so its cheap, has less sugar than juice and more flavor than plain water.) Her cup of choice is an Avent sippy with the soft spout. Once she is drinking consistently we can work on the straw thing. Goldie has also been signing drink and making the k sound.

And for dinner tonight, we had curried chicken. I thought it was a tad spicy (my tounge is delicate) but Goldie likes her food with flavor! That, she gets from her Dad. He's never met a hot sauce he couldn't handle. I can see them eating hot wings together some day.

Something Naughty, Something Nice

Ok, I'll tell you the naughty story first. Swatcho will be 7 next month and is reading pretty well. She is half way through the Calvert first grade phonics program. Today we were driving past an Arby's and I hear her say "New Year's Eve W**res" Whoa! What? Then big sister says "no, New Year's Eve hours." Oh, ok. I resumed breathing at that point.

Now for the nice. We were returning some things at Target yesterday. The girls waited nicely on the bench while Goldie sat in the cart. The couple in front of us had a baby sleeping in his carseat. Goldie looks at me, signs baby, points at the baby, and signs baby again. The sweetness of it all just carries me away. She is 21 months and I have been signing to her since she was 7 months. She has signed baby before, but I am seeing her first attempts at using signs to COMMUNICATE not just immitate. Another one that melts my heart is the sign for milk. She is using that when she wants to nurse. Or when she just wants an excuse to get out of the cart. Too smart.

Here is a picture of her watching Signing Time. It is the only thing she will watch.