More gestures?? I think not.

Yesterday Frances (Speech) recommended that we might want to add more guestures to help Coco express herself.

My opinion is that if she learns more gestures and gets what she wants, she might never try to make a sound. I think it best if we could focus on the prerequisites for speech rather than more gestures. In my opinion, human nature works better by force. If one is cornered, one is more likely to do something out of the ordinary. Coco has to understand she has to talk to get what she wants. She's far from a dummy in a lot of respects and I see that she can learn pretty quickly. In fact, a multitude of activities she learned a whole lot faster than her brother. She learned how to use the straw and the spoon almost instantly; only taught her once on how to put the socks back in her shoes and she did it the next day; she knows to change hands while putting on a shirt, no one taught her that. She probably has more common sense. The tough part is getting her to understand she needs to talk to ask for what she wants.

An Update

Brushing Teeth:

• Coco doesn't like me to brush her teeth with a brush, even the plastic kind for babies. However, she watches with excitement everytime her brother brushes his teeth.
• She would hold the tooth brush and brush my teeth instead.

Eating:

• She only eats egg and rice for dinner these few days. No longer likes to eat meat. She will go sit herself if it's egg. Otherwise she runs away.
• She ate all cookies yesterday, probably because Angel wasn't there so no one gave her cereal in school.
• Ms. Chen noted she's reluctant to use the straw cup these days.
• I used the straw cup (without the straw) for juice and she had no problem finishing.

Learning:

• She learned how to open the fridge. Took me a few tries to get her to hold the handle tight and pull. Each time I said 'Hold TIGHT and PULL'. She holds on to the handle with both hands tight and expects me to put my hands on her shoulder to pull. I just rest my hands there and she pulls. It's psycological. If I don't put my hands there she waits.
• I also tried to help her on the speech part. I've been watching some YouTube videos. I sit face to face with her and keep repeating certain words with stress to her like 'MA Ma, NOse, APple, BAnana' etc. Sometimes I tried to help by manually close her lips. As Angel had mentioned, I see Coco trying to imitate mouth movement at times. She would close her mouth and seemingly trying to make a sound, though no sound.

Last week or earlier, while Coco was watching Dora, I noticed she suddenly got down to the floor and crawl around in circles. I thought that was very funny. She normally flaps her hands. Then my husband noted there was a fish swimming in circles on TV.

An interesting note: Coco is pretty tidy. Even when she was crying, she would put the bottles upright if they fall down. A few days ago, while I was in a hurry I knocked a bottle of honey down on the floor, she was crying but she got down and put it up right by herself.

She makes the 'Mmma' sound more when she's crying. Ms. Chen noted she's been saying that these days.

Hasn't been eating much

Coco hasn't been eating much lately. Almost nothing for dinner, except for milk and crackers. No rice, no meat, no eggs even. She has a bit of a cough in the mornings, not sure during the day, very little at night if any. I put socks on her feet after she went to sleep last night. After a couple of hours, she woke up and pulled them off. She dislikes blankets.

I picked her up from school today. Ms. Chen said she has been doing really well, even following directions! She said she had 'grown a whole lot'. I was a bit surprised.

What does Coco look like?

Coco 2-year-old in Park

11.3.2010: 'ba' 'ma' heard!

Coco fell asleep coming home from day care. She woke up 10 minutes later and was very cranky. Was told by Angel (ABA) that she didn't eat her cereal, hasn't been eating cereal for two days now. Was also told by Frances (ST) that she bit her block and her gum bled as a result. She ended up not having her normal dinner. Only drink milk and some apple sauce, in addition to a cup of juice. She fell asleep around 10:30.

Notes:
1. Today she made distinguishable 'ba' sounds multiple times. We also heard 'ma' a couple of times! However, we were pretty sure she wasn't calling us.
2. I tried to brush her teeth with the brush she was holding today. Meet quite a lot of resistance. Will try again tomorrow.
3. She's been pointing even though she was crying. Closed range pointing.

11.2.2010: tried chicken for dinner

Things tried today:
1. Finely cut chicken for dinner (to the size of a grain of rice) - She spat it out. We had to resort to steamed egg. Note: the steam egg is a different consistency then the normal steamed egg. This time is not as smooth as tofu. She ate it without complaints.
2. Drink from a cup - No problems. Didn't even use a bib! :)

Action Items from The Family Training on 10.27.2010

Present: Angel (ABA), Cindy (ABA Supervisor), Frances (ST), Sonia (OT)-new.

Decisions and action items stemmed from the Family Training session on 10.27.2010:

Decided:
1. All therapy sessions would be carried out in English.
2. The next family meeting is tentatively scheduled for Monday
11/22/10 at 3pm.

Action items:
1. Family will pack Coco rice/lunch.
2. Family will try to help Coco brush teeth.
3. Family will create a family album for Coco to use.
4. Family will have to decide to increase hours or choose a
centered-based service.

As of November 1, 2010

Progress as of November 1, 2010, (thank you all therapists!)

General:

1. Coco has improved eye contact. This seemed to have surprised the therapists. :) She turns her head when she was called, not everytime but notable improvements.
2. Coco is gesturing for 'give me', almost all the time.
3. Coco is able to solve the alphabets and numbers (1-20) sound puzzles; able to solve the shape sorting cube puzzle.

Feeding/Food wise:

1. She was able to feed herself with a spoon, sometimes might need outside help as she tends to pick on her food. We started teaching this a few months ago. Surprisingly she picked up immediately.
2. More picky about food. She no longer eats pears and bananas. We are trying to introduce her a variety of food. She turned very skeptical. A few days ago we tried to give her the strawberry flavored apple sauce. She made a fuss in the beginning. We left it on the table and after a while she picked it up and ate it.
3. Yesterday we reintroduced drinking from a juicebox. This skillset was lost somehow since a few months back. After 3 boxes, we were deemed successful!

Speech wise:

1. Still no words. However, notable new sounds besides 'ga ga', is 'de di'. I thought I heard 'ba' once.

Physical wise:

1. Notably less 'W' site, at least at home.
2. Able to climb up/down the stairs.
3. Walk/run longer distance.
4. Tip-toe still exists. We noted yesterday she was not tip-toeing when she had socks on. We deduced it might be because the floor is too slipping to tip toe with socks on. We will continue this at home and make note of the result.

Background

A little background - Coco was developing normally even when she was at 15 months. She was able to drink from a juice box or any straw at 10 months. Walking at 14 months, babbling around that same time. We all thought she was going to speak any time then. We started to notice something wrong at around 18 months when her grandma reported that she has her own program and plays by herself at a corner all the time. That plus the fact that she started to tip toe and flap her hands at the same time when she sees something that excites her. Really, what program can a baby have? She also ignors all calls to her name, with no response of any kind. My husband and I thought she was deaf. Subsequently through out the following next month and a half, we took her to hearing tests 3 times for confirmation. Negative. We spoke to her pediatrician and she told us to get to the early intervention program. That was at 20 months.

Initial services started in April 2010. She was allocated 2x 30 min speech therapy (ST), 1x 30min physical therapy (PT) and x times SI. In June, she was diagnosed with PDD. Services were increased to 4x 30 min ST, 1/mo family traning and 10 hrs ABA.