Between starting EI and receiving the FX diagnosis we purchased two Baby Signing Time DVDs but we didn’t use them. Duhdee and I had decided early on that we wouldn’t let Monkey watch TV until he was 2, at least. We received the diagnosis a few weeks before his 2nd birthday and we finally decided we really needed to try the DVDs. Clearly he wasn’t just going to start chattering away one day as everyone had been saying and he needed a few more signs than “more” to communicate effectively!
We started playing the DVDs for him, he was interested in them for a few minutes but that was about it. We kept trying, at least we were learning signs even if he wasn’t. That summer we took our normal 10 day vacation with my family in the mountains of Maine. I was a bit reluctant to go up that summer because they were building a new house which meant the lot was not child friendly (dusty/dirty/construction zone) and everyone was going to be busy. It turned out to be the BEST thing for us.
We took the DVDs with us and we played them A LOT because we had no other form of entertainment. In addition to that we introduced Monkey to the quad that week. He LOVED riding in our laps as we drove oh so slowly up and down the driveway and through the shallow brook. We started using the quad as a reward, he learned to sign “go” on the quad. By the time we came home he was sporadically using about 10 new signs!
That vacation truly was a turning point for both Monkey and for me, he finally realized these signs WORKED to get him what he wanted and I finally realized that he could totally rock ASL if we were persistent.
That is so great! We used some signing with Ian, but I think I just gave up too easily. Avery does a few signs, but doesn’t need to….the girl talks non-stop (no complaining here, though!). I’m working on some with Benjamin, but he seems to have a little bit harder time with the expressive. His ST wants to try PECS. That’s something I didn’t think I had in me to do with Ian (as I was an emotional wreck for a long time after his diagnosis – still am at times), but decided it’s worth the effort since I don’t know where Benjamin will fall along the spectrum of FX.
Way to go on persistence!
I think we would have given up too if not for the results we had that week. His EI folks had been signing with him for almost a YEAR at that point and he just was not interested in using it. We just lucked out that the DVDs worked for him since he also rejected PECs…we would have been in very dire straights otherwise.