Thursday 01/03/90 3rd lesson, bath time

We arrived at the Carel du toit Centre for our next lesson with Vanessa.

Activity: Bath time

Aim:  1) interpretation of his babbling and actions

2) Turn taking.

Good! You’re giving him the language for his babbling and actions.

“Ta mummy, ta the duck” when he had his hand stretched out and wanted the duck.

Giving this direct language is good and should always be done, rather than say, ask the question –

What is it Hughan? Because he is not going to be able to answer that question.

Lovely turn taking: Hughan stroke mummy’s hand. Stroke Vanessa’s hand. Stroke Hughan’s hand. (This is also repetition and he is experiencing his body parts and learning their names).

His non-verbal imitation is lovely. He copied me squishing in the water, throwing the fish in the water, throwing the toys in the basin, patting the cat on the bath, stroking my arm, touching his toes 🙂

Remember not to strain your voice.

Sue you are really persevering with the eye contact. You got lovely eye contact when you took the boat and held it next to your face because that was the item he was interested in. Note how he did something (splashed in the water) and then looked up at me smiling and expecting a reaction. I was so happy – he is already learning that we make eye contact when we communicate and he was communicating with me. This is stimulated and encouraged by following his interest and imitating his actions. By doing so he is getting feedback and feeling there is importance to his vocalisation and actions and thus will do them again.

He really enjoyed the session and babbled quite a lot. Note how we brought auditory training in –

Woof, woof with the dog, squeaking the kangaroo, clapping, shuffling the toys in the basin etc. Each time you looked excited, pointed to your ear and said “I can hear” plus imitated the sound with your voice. He would laugh in response to your expressions. This is lovely – he is aware that this is fun.

I hope you can stay another week. Thanks for your hard work. See you 8.30am tomorrow.

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.)