Today Jennifer from the school came to our home to give Yangyang a lesson. She was 15 minutes late, but she used the rest of the 50 minutes singing and talking to, and playing and interacting with Yangyang. She was so patient and fun. Yangyang was very nervous at first. Several times he walked nervously between my lap and the couch, to let out some nervous energy. He paid close attention to what Jennifer was saying or doing, but he was not not ready to participate. He seemed to understand half of what Jennifer was saying. Later he became more bold, but he always kept a distance from Jennifer. Eventually he started to wander off to the computer or talk about cars. Jennifer thought that he did the "more" sign repeatedly when he wanted to see more toys in the big bag. I wanted to believe her. Earlier in the afternoon I tried to reinforce the "more" sign when he wanted more animal crackers, but I had little success. When he was with Jennifer, I wasn't sure if he was doing the "more" sign or the "spider" sign, but Jennifer said that every time he did the sign, he was looking at the toy bag. When Jennifer was cleaning the toys at the end of our session, Yangyang became lively and he walked around the room briskly with a big grin on his face. Our assignment this week included: doing the signs for "more", "all gone", and turning pages in a book (which he had been doing well for a long time). I was glad to be given "homework" to do. It's important to set weekly goals. I hope Jennifer will come two more times before Yangyang goes to school.
Some "words" from the past week:
the usual: car, dog, duck, da-chee (cheese), 掉 (fall down), 鱼 (fish), 灯 (light), 奶奶 (milk), 马 (horse), 蛋 (egg), 豆豆 (peas)sounds: kua kua (frog), ah~~ (lion), io~io~ (cat), wu~wu~ (fire truck siren), vroom~vroom~ (truck), wu-wu- (train)new: 牛奶 (milk), 开心 (happy)exclamation: wow, yehsigns: dog, spider, pig, bear, rabbit, dinosaur, cracker, hatpossible words: police car, race carI will say that he has about 18 verbal words, and is making progress.