Zora and ST
Well, she is making improvements and is much easier to understand, but we still have a ways to go. She is actually shy in preschool, which just stuns me, but was starting to offer answers/initiate interaction as the semester came to an end. Next year they want to increase her ST hours, using one time to prime her for the preschool a little more (similar to what I did with Zane, but not as intense), and the other for pure speech & language development. I hope to get her into Reading Explorers as well. She is moving forward. I proud of how hard she is working. She is actually adding the “S” and some of the other clusters she is struggling with to her words and it is starting to generalize, so I expect that she will catch up with peers reasonably soon, so that is great.
They did discover the same thing I realized when I heard she was not actually understanding (during testing) some basic things (like over/under…those type of things). I thought that she knew that stuff, but didn’t realize that she was just following body language. She is so good at following body language that they found that they have to cover their entire face during auditory discrimination work because she can figure out what the right answer is by looking at your eyes & even just eyebrows. *snort* She is absolutely awesome at reading body language, which is really a bit novel to them, since they work with so many autistic kids, and me, who’s first child is all but blind to body language. (he had to be taught explicitly how to read common body language, but he does have the capacity to learn at least the basics, which is good).
She instinctively follows gaze to an astonishingly accurate degree, even a fast unconscious glance, so you really have to hide your face to make sure she is listening to the words and she can read your face like a book (well, better than a book for her. lol). It is going to prove challenging as a parent, but what an amazing gift for regular life.
