New Words!

This is very exciting! There are new words: apple, car, bye bye, hola (hi in Spanish). We are having just a little bit of trouble keeping Tommy saying the words he knows.  He says them for a while and he completely stops saying them for weeks and even months until we hear them again. According to our ST, this is very typical and we should keep repeating these words.

We are working with him in cause and effect, if I say something and I can get this. We are using his milk as a motivator. For example: We say Tommy say the word "milk". If he says something close to milk or at least a sound we give him the milk. We tried today and he said "kah" and when I repeated "milk", he said: "me". Translation: Milk. Then, we gave him the milk. We have to do it for a week until Tommy gets used to it. Our ST suggested a voice activated toy as other way to motivate him to keep saying the words he knows. We got one for his birthday and we are exiting to see how it will work. 

We have slowed down in working with the sings, but he has learned two new sings: me/mine/my turn and cracker. He is using mine very often when we take a toy away from him. He uses the sign for "me" when we sing Pat a cake; when we read Panda Bear, Panda Bear what Do You see? to complete the end of every sentence in English and Spanish; and when we ask to him ¿Quién es mi bebé? (Who is my baby?). I haven't seen him signing for "my turn". He signed cracker while I was putting his pajamas on tonight. After that, I asked him several times "sign cracker" and he did. We haven't worked on this sign, but he learned it by watching the videos. I will keep teaching new signs to him, but our focused is to motivate him to say the words he has said.