Middle Sojourner had another victory. She began talking to another friend (one that doesn't live near us, but has been visiting). Slowly she is beginning to make good progress and we are very hopeful that she will begin speaking at school this school year.
One of the exrecises games we do is to play war. They count "1, 2, 3!" together as they flip the cards and then Middle Sojourner says either "You" or "Me" depending on who has the higher card. This is just one of the simple one word answer games we play in order to help her overcome her fear of speaking. Usually she starts our whispering and then slowly gets a little louder.
One of the things I noticed with this visit was that it took Middle Sojourner longer to warm-up to speaking. I surmize that it is because I didn't tell her ahead of time that I wanted to work on the games with this friend when she came over and therefore she did not have time to process it. Having time to process it and pray about it seems to give her more courage and makes her less uneasy going into the situation. This seems to fir her personality in general (not just with the SM) so I am not quite sure this would be helpful to all kids with SM, or if it is just helpful to her.
Even though she played all of the one word answer games verbally she did not immediately start talking to the girl normally as she had previously. Later in the day she did begin talking to her openly though. The windows were open and they were playing out side. I overheard the girl say, "Middle Sojourner, you are talking to me!" Middles Sojourner said, "Yeah, it's no big deal, I am starting to do that now. I started talking to two of my friends from school already!" That answer cracked me up. It was also really good to hear because a major part of her fear is how people will react to her speaking (she doesn't like for it to be a big deal) and so it was great that she responded in that way. I am so proud of her!
And, I am also so thankful that the Lord continues to work in this situation.
Proud Mama,
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by and for commenting. It is much appreciated!