By Golly I Think He's Getting It

Yesterday Aiden and I left early morning on our trek to Cleveland for his first therapy session with our new auditory verbal therapist (AVT) Dr. Don. His appointment wasn't until 3pm, so we stopped and visited with Aiden's awesome aunt (and God mother) so he could eat lunch, get his energy out, and nap all in hopes of this session going much better than the crazed boy he was at our meet and greet a month ago.

Let me just say, either there was some other little boy in the chair or this man is AMAZING. and I have to say, I'm pretty sure it was Aiden sitting there. Our whole session was like an out of this world roller coaster ride with twists and turns, not knowing what was coming next, and full of excitement. Here's a snippet from it all.

There's no punctuation in this description for a reason ...

As soon as we walked in the room it all started

plastic rings turn on the table Dr. Don belts out the lings

Aiden puts the rings on as

Dr. Don takes it a step up and prompts Aiden with much excitement

to repeat the lings and Aiden does

each.and.every.one

his /s/and /sh/ were simply amazing

his /m/ and /oo/ were still closed mouth

yet he was so proud of himself

and could tell he was having fun showing off

The excitement continues

The room's in uproar full of

motion and we're off to the next activity

Here come the animals and old MacDonald and

for as much as Aiden will not play this activity with me at home

he loved every minute of it because this man

is so animated with every little thing he says and does

Animals are going here and there and Aiden

attempts to repeat all the sounds and

"SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE" them in the silo, and

"OH NO, where did the cow go? The silo's empty?" and

"OH, the pig SNORTS and OINKS and the sheep's SO SOFT"

and we got through the whole song with so much more

than just animal sounds and E-I-E-I-O's

THEN before you know it

"The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

and the people go "in and out" and one gets stuck so

"BANG BANG BANG! (the bus on the table), they're STUCK"

and the baby's crying and even

Aiden made the baby cry "WAHHHH"

(first /w/ I've ever heard)

and the mom says "shhhhh" oh so softly

(and so did Aiden)

and each and every word Dr. Don emphasized,

"Aiden, help me say it, SHUT"

and sure enough, this little show off

helped him say it ... or at least tried!

After the bus we sorted pictures of airplanes and cows

(btw, this is an activity from The Listening Room)

and after a round of modeling

Aiden wanted to do the rest all by himself and

put all the cows on the farm (each with a "mmmm")

and all the planes at the airport (each with an "ahhh)

(I tried sorting with him just the other day and it went nowhere)

and when Aiden was done with an activity

he'd hand it to Dr. Don and say "all done" clear as day

and before I knew it over an hour had gone by and

seeing my little monkey happily engaged

for more than TEN minutes and perform the way he did.

WOW.

In between all this nonstop excitement, there were pauses of silence, times to "STOP" and discover, different alarm clocks ringing (to check Aiden's detection and localization). A good hour of solid, yet FUN language immersion and Aiden was like a little sponge the whole time saying words I thought were lost in Never Never Land.

What may seem overwhelming to some, was PERFECT for Aiden. Being the crazed monkey he was our first session set the stage for what AIDEN NEEDS for a successful therapy session. For a therapist to pick up on this and hold Aiden's attention that long AND get that much language out of him, I gotta say,

I think we've finally found our right match.

and it feels GREAT!