Abundance

If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of
it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.

~William Shakespeare~

While he may lack the prodigiousness of the Bard, Nikolas seems to be experiencing an explosion of communication lately. Not just in the generic cooing and babbling which he often does, or even the “singing” of certain songs/tunes —though he has been singing more in context to indicate an activity or desire, come to think of it.

No, Nik really seems to be catching on to this whole communication gig. We’re having some mixed successes with the actual AAC devices; Nik is making good progress with sequencing but the whole bit about conscious choice-making with the push of a button? Sporadic at best. I’ve been working with Nik’s speech therapist, Miss M, on finding ways to develop this skill. We are both thinking waaay outside the box here. Nik really is not cued in to visual symbols yet but is keen on music. We’re working on some ideas to incorporate a snippet of music —like a line of a song from a video he likes— only spoken, not sung, and coupled with a visual representation so he has to hit the button if he wants to actually hear the music.

So, when you add in the powerful motivator of music, with Nik’s new found crush on Rachel, and his intense desire to eat… well, you get something like this:

(For clarity: the sign for apple is made by rubbing your knuckle in a small motion in the apple of your cheek. Children who are just learning to sign —or those with fine motor impairments —often use approximations rather than precisely mimicking the sign.)

Now, the video is obviously set up but I did so in response to Nik actively requesting a piece of apple from me at dinner time. TWICE and without prompting!

In addition to the spontaneous signing —in the correct context, too, as he signed “eat” and then “apple” in succession —Nik has also begun mimicking the intonation of certain words or phrases that he hears me say or is learning from the Signing Time videos. Tonight, after I gave him the apple wedge and he started slurping away like there was no tomorrow, I said “Nik, can you say Thank you!” as I made the sign, too. He thumped his chest with his palm (apparently his way of saying “thank you” as well as “yes”) and said “uhhhh-uh” in perfect intonation.

The words may not have been there, but I swear I heard “I love you, Mama” in that simple guttural utterance. Nik beamed at me; I laughed —then wiped away a tear.

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