A couple months ago, I began a process to enroll Jade in some speech therapy sessions to help prompt her verbal communication. I know all kids progress differently, but given how early Jade did everything else (crawl, stand, walk, etc.) I was slightly concerned as to why she wasn't babbling as much as other kids her age. She had a complete evaluation that assessed all areas including her interaction attachment in which she was age equivalent, receptive language where she was the equivalent of at least 21 months and expressive language where she was the equivalent of between 12 and 15 months, thus making her eligible for speech therapy services through the Early Intervention program.
So far she has had 5 sessions (which are at our house which is so nice) and as made so much progress. While she isn't using a lot of real words consistently yet, she is making SO many different consonant and vowel sounds and using vocalizations in play that she hadn't been before. Yay! :)
On of my favorite things that they teach the kids is some simple sign language to help communicate with them. Jade looks so adorable when she does her signs and has picked up on them so quickly. Here is a little video of her doing signs "more", "open" and "help". The fake cry at the end was not one of the signs she learned in therapy, it just kind of came on it's own and I think its so cute!! :)
I should also add, that while she is doing the signs on command in this video, she does use them correctly in day to day activity. We now request she sign more if she wants more, open if she needs something opened or turned on and help if she needs help.
