Posts Tagged ‘sign language’
Sweet Signs
A few minutes ago, Sawyer handed Cooper something and Cooper immediately signed ‘thank you’ to him. Sawyer responded with…’you’re welcome buddy.’ It was such a sweet exchange. When Cooper was a toddler, and we realized his speech was not developing, we focused on sign language. He picked up on some. ‘No, more, help, all done, please, and thank you.’ But he plateaued after those. He had no interest in learning any other ones. I think it’s because us hands wouldn’t cooperate. Sign language takes fine motor skills that he didn’t…
Read MoreGive Your Child A Voice
This morning I had a conversation with my nonverbal son. A real one without words. To all of the mamas and dads out there with children who do not speak verbally, hang on. Never give up hope. Keep working towards functional communication. I sat on the couch drinking my coffee. He sat next to me immersed in his trains. I asked him if something happened at school yesterday. He grunted ‘yea.’ I asked him if there was a little boy who frustrates him. He grunted ‘yea.’ Now this isn’t the…
Read MoreTo my Partner in Life
My name is Amber and I am hard of hearing and an autism mother. I want to thank my husband, the man who is always fighting for awareness of our autistic son. This is going on year 3 since I found out about the autism diagnosis of my son, Jason. I remember being in the room the diagnosis day and just was feeling all mixed emotions. I was speechless going through the whole evaluation with my son. I just wanted to go home and cuddle my son and be done…
Read MoreI’m Thankful for You: My Son’s ASL Tutor
“Heather, if sign language isn’t working for Milo, I don’t care. I’ll teach him something else. I just want him to learn how to communicate.” I looked at my son’s sign language tutor, Hannah, whose eyes were glistening with tears as we watched my six-year-old nonverbal son press his stomach onto the swing in our living room. Anyone who knows Hannah knows her passion for sign language. We’d hired her to teach our nonverbal autistic son how to sign, but he wasn’t getting it. He was defaulting to signing “more”…
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