Friday 02/06/90 Vanessa’s Encouraging Notes

It was time to leave Cape Town and return to Gaborone. Vanessa added her last notes to the diary.

Dear Sue

Once again the time has flown by. It has been an absolute pleasure working with you and Hughan again.

A few pointers to work on at home –

1)Eye contact:

a)  be patient and persevere

b)  always be on his eye level,

c)   hold objects new your face,

d)   freeze actions when he’s absorbed with them

e)   use sound

REMEMBER : talk – do – talk – do……

2) Intensive auditory training: especially as he has had so many ear infections.

a)   use animal noises,

b)   use transport noises.

3) Imitate and interpret: his babbling and actions

4) aim for varied language input – plenty of meaningful repetition re: use one word in many different sentences – “ball”, “the ball is blue”, “catch the ball”, “ Hughan’s ball”, “roll the ball”.

5) No gesturing

Give a command with only eye contact. Should he not respond correctly, do the action and repeat the language at the same time. Read through session notes for examples.

Please give my regards to Willem and a big hug and a kiss for Vil.

I hope you have a safe flight home. Remember to keep in touch frequently. I look forward to hearing from you (I love letters).

Maintain your positive attitude at all times. See you in three months time.

Take care

Vanessa

(I started this website to help other patents with deaf children through our experience. Our son Hughan was born in 1988 and was diagnosed profoundly deaf at 14 months old. We kept a Diary, so his progress could be tracked between our lessons, as we were living in Gaborone in Botswana and traveled every 3 months to the Carel du Toit Centre in Cape Town.)