Joey’s hand hovered over mine, with a slow and thoughtful purpose. The intense stare on his face told me that he was telepathically telling his hand to stay where it was, and then open his fingers to release the foam letter he was so forcefully clutching. His focus was similar to what one observes on the faces of college math majors pouring over a new problem. He was going to release this letter. Nothing would distract him.
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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!
A popular book in preschool and kindergarten classrooms is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. It is a silly story about the lower case letters all climbing up a coconut tree. Of course, when all 26 letters get to the top of the tree there is not enough room and they all fall out (Boom!) and the uppercase letters come to help them up. It is a cute, rhythmic way to get familiar with the letters of the alphabet, and seemed like a book that Joey would enjoy.
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Serve and Return: Tuning in to Joey’s patterns of communication
Serve and Return is a term researchers and practitioners use to describe the back-and-forth communication we experience when we interact and respond to one another. It is essential in early development, and starts the first time your infant locks eyes with you and you smile back. The infant locking eyes with you is the serve – the opening of a communicative chain- and you respond to the infant’s communication attempt with a smile – the return. This simple interaction – two way, reciprocal communication – is where children start to learn patterns from their environment. It is where the neurons in the brain start forming connections with one another, based on the repeated discoveries of “when I smile at mommy she smiles back.”
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Pete the Cat…
Joey loves Pete the Cat.
Who doesn’t? Pete has bright colors, fun songs, and predictable story lines. With Pete it’s all good.
I am three years old!
I am three years old. I am three years old. I am three years old.
There is a button on Joey’s AAC device that he can select and it will give us that phrase. I am three years old. When Joey finds this button, he hits it over and over again.
