Friday, February 13, 2009

Signing Time

Pam, is giving away signing time dvd's. One of the ways to qualify is to write a blog entry about why I want to win!

As many of you know, Nathan loves to babble! Unfortunately, because of his jaw surgery, cleft hard and soft palates, and several other facial anomalies, he doesn't do much or take anything orally. Its thought by the doctors that when he underwent jaw surgery at 3 days old (since he stopped breathing in the NICU on the second day of his life because his jaw was too recessed), the he lost some feeling in his tongue. We are still working on him being able to close his mouth comfortably. At 13 months old now, Nathan's speech level is that of a 6-7 month old. He has yet to make any consonant sounds such as baa, mama, da da, etc. He hasn't reached the pointing stage either.

I've always been grateful that I was given this sweet little boy. He's had excellent medical care (for the most part) and I love Mary, our speech/feeding therapist. However, I'm not super mom and I have no idea or professional training on how to help Nathan talk. Its going to be a long process.

That's where Signing Time comes in. Santa brought Nathan a couple of Baby Signing Time dvds for Christmas. He LOVES to watch them with Ellie. He hasn't started doing the signs yet, but Ellie has and when I ask her to talk to Nathan with signs and words, she does. Ellie, who will be 4 on Sunday, is Nathan's best teacher. She loves it and because he wants to be just like her, Nathan loves it too.

When I'm home from work, I always try to pop on one dvd for the kids to watch. I don't get tired of the songs, and man, in one song it talks about eating and shows kids drinking! Nathan needs to see that (even if he could care less right now!) I think that Signing Time has some phenomenal products!

1 comment:

Sheena said...

That is so great for Nathan. Ellie will definitely be his best teacher and it will be great for her to learn signing too. Maryn has two cousins down here who have hearing loss so I want her to learn some sign as well. Keep this updated on how he's doing with it.