Week 16 Progress

It seems like Raiyan's receptive language has gone far beyond my initial expectations and this means that Jeff and I really have to start believing that he DOES understand a lot of things that we say. This has been very helpful in trying to reason with him when he refuses to do something we tell him to. For instance this morning, he didn't want to get out of the car once we got to Kerri's house because as HE said himself, he wanted to go to school. Later on, Kerri told me that she had to give Raiyan a mini lecture as to WHY he still has to come and see her despite him wanting to go to school because it is only through her will he be able to talk better with his teachers and friends at school. And surprisingly, it seemed like he completely understood what Kerri said because as soon as he replied with a hesitant "okaayy..", he ended up being happy and motivated for the rest of the session!

At the same time, because his receptive language is so good now, we ALL have to remember not to underestimate that knowledge he has because you just might not know what he'd be able to eavesdrop in when we're having our casual conversations!

Raiyan's expressive language is also coming along really well though there is still a long way to go. The key factor is to literally get him to talk and talk and talk all the time... I guess I have to admit that in my already verbal life (whether at work or in social situations), I talk a lot already. So sometimes it does feel cumbersome to force myself to talk when all I want to do is just sit back and relax but NO.. this is just TOO important and so I will continue to not shut up ever!!

His achievements of late are:

• Pronouns: He has mastered "he" or "she" and is almost there with "they". He has also gotten "my" and "your" but still gets confused sometimes. Trying to generalise "his", "her" and "their" now;
• What, Which, Where, Who and Why questions are almost mastered except when you mix them up! That is what we're trying to practise more of now. Slowly starting on "when" questions too.
• For the "where" questions, we are encouraging him to be more descriptive and getting the language out instead of him just pointing to where the thing is. For eg, we ask "where is your nose?", instead of just pointing to it, Raiyan will say "under my eyes."
• His abstract thinking is improving. When asked "what is the same with a parrot and a macaw?" Raiyan said "they are birds, AND they fly AND they'er colourful". We are doing more of this but making it more natural and not necessarily categorising the items in categories which we know he loves to do!
• His logical thinking is great! He especially loves this set of "irregularities" flash cards where a picture clearly has something wrong in it. For eg, a picture of a books in a toaster. We then ask Raiyan what's wrong with the picture, and he says "you read a book. bread goes into toaster." And of course being the cheeky boy Raiyan is, he'll be correcting this in a "duh, that's not supposed to be that way" tone! hahaha the little corrector!
• Raiyan has no trouble initiating conversations with others too. He would ask "what is that?" or "where is she?" etc. This morning, when I was with Kerri in the living room, I can actually hear Raiyan having a chit chat with Kerri's husband in the kitchen!

In terms of Raiyan's personality, I guess I'm not all that surprised that he's being more strong headed these days. Lately, he keeps protesting to do things but instead of tantrumming he will just say "stop it. I don't want to" etc etc. One particular thing he's so against nowadays is shaking others' hands and saying bye. His argument is always because he's doing something at that very moment. This just compels me to reason with him as to why it is important to shake his elders' hands and if that doesn't work, then I would take away what it is he's preoccupied with UNTIL he agrees to shake hands and this has been working lately.

Apart from the protests, I am amused to discover that he has a really cheeky sense of humour. As I have mentioned earlier, he just LOVES to correct things. Well basically he loves it when others are wrong and he is right! To the extent that sometimes he'd be debating with J on some things and when J gets it wrong he will laugh out loud!!

More stories next week!