31 for 21: Tommy's Speech

This year hasn't been easy for Tommy. But regardless all the challenges he is facing, his speech seems to be his strength in the area of communication, according to his current Speech/Language Therapist. Since the middle of May, Tommy speech has increased. He is repeating a lot after us. Once an while, it seems we are communicating. One day, my husband and I were talking during dinner time how much we love our kids and Tommy looked at  both of us and said: I love you!

He loves to sing, and he is incorporating more real words into his singing time (which is all day long). So I am also singing more with him to introduce new concepts and words. Currently, Tommy says about 200 words, but he doesn't use them very often. But it makes very happy when I hear comments from people at school that they can understand what he is saying. The other day, someone told me that she heard Tommy counting in Spanish (uno, dos, tres). She asked him: Tommy, what are you doing? Are you counting in Spanish? and she counted in Spanish and he repeated after her. She was very excited for him, so am I. This person didn't know I am teaching him to count in Spanish and she understood what he was saying.

To help Tommy to increase his vocabulary, I am using signs again because he learns the words faster with the signs. So I am debating if I should get a bigger baby signing time DVD set. Currently, I am using the DVDs we have since he was a baby.  I also put a signing time chart on my refrigerator, so I can remember the signs to talk to Tommy using the signs.