just recently. THey have been like total sponges. The boys are not highly verbal, they have a large vocabulary but they don't have conversations, but Nikolas is picking up several words a day, and I'm not sure entirely where other than the enviornement. They have also started mimicing big time. This especially is pretty recent. My dd had practically no speech at age 2 and no real services until age 3. She is almost 7 and everything she knows and all the concepts she understands has been taught to her, everything she says.. It is a slow, tedious process;however, she is learning. She does speak in sentences and "converse", but she had to be taught how (basically what to say). It is kind of eerie because everything is like deja vu. I really don't know when she will "take off". Her BCBA says that she is now able to learn from her environment. I am not seeing it yet, but hopefully soon.Our dd has been in speech since 10 mos or so (oral motor issues early
on). It wasn't until 2 1/2 or so that she was verbal. At that point, it
became labeling (mostly from flashcards we used & from ST). Now, it's
mostly a mix of delayed echolalia (from TV shows, her sister, etc.),
echolalia, and simply learned words & lines from us. We model almost all
her conversations w/ others (E, say "hi" to your friend, we often have to
do the talking, & hope she does copy us). At times, she will come up with
a question or something that is truly her own...this is jibberish a lot of
times, or speech we don't understand. But, some real questions (where
daddy go?) do occur from time to time.
On a side note, our dd learned her colors & shapes before most children,
and without ANY teaching from us. Honestly, at the age we realized she
knew them (between 15-18 mos if I remember correctly), we weren't
focused on that, our older dd learned that stuff after age 2. Anyway,
there are a few things that she seems to mysteriously know. We have
been working on numbers, counting, abc's, for months & months
now...with very little progress. Same goes for self-help skills, those she
neither learns via observation, copying, or being taught. WHO KNOWS!
So...long story short, I have no idea! I just keep modeling, and trying,
and hoping. At this point, I feel there are so many variables (sensory,
mood, energy level, social issues, anxiety, etc.) that interfere with her
speech, along with her oral motor apraxia & some motor planning issues.
I'm not always sure what it might be that holds her back at times, but
then other times she is able to come up with a run-of-the-mill 3 year old
question. If I come up with a better answer (& hopefully a shorter one),
I'll let ya know. Good luck! Btw, my dd is 3 yrs, 3 mos.
I think my ds has been learning on his own all along to some extent. He taught himself all the numbers 0-9 at 20 months. I had been reading him a book and pointing to the numbers while saying them, but one day he was pointing to the numbers on his toy phone and saying them! So, I would say he picked that up on his own. The book was Ten Little Ladybugs. I would just point to the number and say "TEN little ladybugs sitting on the vine". But he got that the number was 10.
I have had to teach him a lot of things - particularly gross and fine motor stuff. But, he has coordination issues. I don't think he doesn't get it - his body just won't cooperate at times. And he has executive functioning issues - organizing his thoughts. Visual schedules work well for that!
Most kids have to be taught things to some extent, ours need more one-on-one. I don't think there's a magic time they start to pick things up. But I don't think they'll spend the rest of their lives having to be taught every little thing either - especially if they are highly verbal and you are working with him from an early age.
Sorry, not much of an answer, I guess!
When did your child, if at all, start "learning" on their own. When i think about all of the things that Ryan has learned, especially with regard to language, its all things he has been "taught" either through ABA, speech, TV, a book or his family. All of the language he has (which is getting better all the time) are things that have been verbally modeled for him.
For those of you with highly verbal children, especially those that had a lot of therapy between 2-4 years old, when did they start picking more up from their environment? Was it like a switch that got turned on? Does it happen when they start asking questions? Is there anything I can be doing other than modeling everything?
Its exhausting to have to think about teaching Ryan every little thing for the rest of his life. Hes definitely able to generalize well-- once hes taught a word he can generalize it anywhere and in any form, but Id love to see him acquire skills on his own, without having to be taught everything.
thanks for the feedback!