Today was one of those weird days…Maddie had her first speech therapy session and I was just off…the therapist is good…it was me…she was giving examples on things to work on with Maddie and I realized how far we have to go…she said that Maddie needs patterns to help start communication…and that is why she is all over the place…I am not sure why this struck me and it did not offend me…it just made me sad…she even said “do you understand”…because I was not responding to her…I am sure I came off aloof…but I was just caught up in the need of “patterns”…why you ask…because I have always thought the best way to teach a child is through exploratory play…give the child the tools and let them come up with the best way for them…through trial and error…thought and process…not pattern…not over and over the same thing the same way…it seems boring to me and mundane…I know she knows best and it makes sense…but I want to raise Maddie like Max…I want her to get it and be eager to learn and explore…to get up and fall down…Maddie watches and observes and then she will try it…but not over and over again…just enough and then she is off to the next thing…so as Maddie was working on ball play of putting the ball in the hole and watching it go in circles…she decided she was done with the balls and got a Mr. Potato head ear…and I thought she would put it in her mouth but she didn’t she took it back to the ball play…put it in the hole and helped it down the ramp…the therapist was very pleased with this…and so was I…I just think letting kiddos do it there way is better…but all I have read and experienced with Maddie I know prompts are very important…even though I am not a fan of them…I know that I need to make patterns with Maddie…I just do not want Maddie to be “typical” or “textbook”…I just want Maddie to be different then what they have seen before…I always want people to say Maddie is amazing how she is so “normal”….and shows no signs of delay...
Monday, January 10, 2011
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Maddie is AMAZING just as she is! I think the words we all long to hear are "no signs of delays" but I've realized that just because there are delays doesn't mean our kiddos aren't doing great! I try to raise Sutter just like I did Landon, but I recently realized I'm going to have to make some changes and adjustments. It's not bad, just different....everyone learns different so who's to say if Maddie wasn't sporting that extra chromosome she still wouldn't need to learn differently than Max!
ReplyDeleteYou are an awesome mom and Maddie is a rockstar! :)
It was hard for me at first to take all the advice and suggestions and tips from everyone on how to teach Russell...Afterall he was my 5th so I figured I knew what I was doing! But as he has gotten older I have noticed he does learn differently, and he does need a lot of pattern and I do have to do things a little differently for him...But thats ok, as long as he is learning and moving forward its all good :)
ReplyDeleteAnd Maddie IS Amazing!!
We are working on patterns and routine sentences with Lucas too. He isn't understanding the connection yet. It's hard learning to become a teacher for a child with Ds. It's different anyway.
ReplyDeleteMaddie is Maddie and she is fantastic! Arina seems to "typical" which was so weird to me seeing as though she lived in an orphanage with no therapy. But I think it in some ways helped her. There were things she had to do for survival. Like eating, the girl is a rockstar! But if she didn't eat with a spoon, then she starved!
ReplyDeleteI am a bit in the dark here, what are "patterns" and "routine sentences" I haven't heard of them before, could you give an example? I love the you descibe Maddie learning about her environment Potato head ears in a ball play so typical my 3 year old still experiments in this way.
ReplyDeleteHow funny you wrote this...just today I was working with Brooke to get the balls into the dinosaur to go down the slide...over and over and over again...didn't really have to do that before, and it struck me...different learning...not bad exactly...just different..and though it may bore me, I'm cool with it, because when she did do it, wow! That's excitement!
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