talker

Fay has made some significant progress on her verbal skills over the past couple of weeks. I noticed a big improvement in her communication attempts and number of "words" she was using while we were in Wisconsin. I wonder if having so many people and new things around stimulated her to want to talk more.

We've also been showing Fay a sign language (ASL) video almost every day for about two weeks now. I hadn't intended to bombard her with ASL, but she loves the video so much and requests it every day. I think there are two reasons she loves it so. One, there are little kids throughout the video doing signs. And, two, there are most of her favorite objects being used as examples for the ASL words taught. For example, we learn how to say: eat, more, ball, baby, car, dog, cat, mom, dad, shoes. These are all of her favorites. If only they had a sign for "yogurt" we'd be set.

She immediately took to the "eat" sign and has been using it whenever I say the word eat. Even better, she has these new words:

"Mo" -- More
"Ba" -- Ball
"Mama" -- Mama (says it a lot more now)
"Bye Bye" -- Bye Bye or good night
"ooo-dy" -- Brody (her grandma's dog)
"Meow" -- Cat sound
"Moo" --- Cow sound
"Baa" -- Sheep Sound

Her babysitter, Deb has also taught her to say "Nana" and "Lyla" for her grandma and friend. But she only does those while singing a little made up song.

Also I've been trying to get her to do the "F" sound, so she can say her name. But it comes out as a tongue blow.

She hums along with the Alphabet song. And she is *really* singing along with old MacDonald. She says the animal sounds right after I mention the animal and she does the "E-I-E-I-O" in the right spot. Its so much fun to sing with her!!