Back in Time

A friend of mine was looking for an old website, and I mentioned the Wayback Machine. We we couldn't find what we were looking for, so to test it I searched for an old blog of mine. Downcues.com 

Oh my gosh! You have to go to it! Make sure your speakers are up all the way so you can hear Angela's little tiny voice. It was done in 2005 when Angela was just 7 years old.

After the events of the last week, this brought me to tears tonight.

More reading

I think it's important to remember that three months ago Axel had NO method of communication other than some grunts, pointing, and taking people by the hand. He had a couple of Serbian word approximations, but they were just that; words that his foster family recognized but weren't really recognizable to others.

When watching Axel cue this story, he is cuing the correct SOUNDS in the word. Even when I correct that he's saying with his mouth, it's because I'm working on him saying sounds I know he's able to say. Even so, he's still cuing the correct sounds, which shows that he recognizes them, it's just hard for him to get that recognition through to his mouth.

so stink'in smart!

Axel is learning SO fast! He's picking up cuing a little at a time, AND learning to read. Wow....amazing. In this video, you see him cue the chunk "an", then he has to find it in the words (or non-sense words) on the worksheet and circle them. Part of the reason I'm using Cued Speech with Axel is it makes him understandable. He cannot say the sound "n" at this point, and cuing gives him a way to show he recognizes it even without being able to actually say it. He can cue the SOUNDS (not the letter, the SOUND) "a" or "n" independently, and he can put them together to make "an". LOVE CUED SPEECH!