Andrew had his first therapy session with his developmental therapist this past Monday. Megan played with him for about an hour, focusing on teaching him to sign "more please", a two-word combination. We had gotten Andrew to repeat things in the past, but he didn't seem to make multi-word combinations.
Megan played a puzzle game with him, which Andrew responded well to. She took all the pieces of the puzzle, and hid them. Then she made Andrew sign "more please" to get a piece. He didn't sign that combination many times. But she kept reinforcing the combination before handing him a piece. They played it several times. Then they switched puzzles and repeated. And again. It seemed like a very small amount of progress was made.
But I had already read that we need to repeat the practices we observe in his therapies, so we started playing that game several times this past week. And then an amazing thing happened. Today we played it again, and he was starting to sign "more please". Not every time. But more than his first session.
Sara began playing the game with him, and his big sister, Audrey came over to me and wanted to play the same game. She is four and can speak and sign, and loved playing the game. First she would do the signs. Then she said it was my turn, and asked me to do the signs.
This afternoon we all went over to watch a football game. And towards the end of the game, Andrew came over to me with his empty sippy cup and signed "more please" with no prompting. I cheered, "Yeah Andrew!" That put a smile on my face.
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