Last night, Nat was really on.<\/p>\n
Lately, it seems that he really wants to talk to us on the phone. Here’s the latest conversation:
[phone rings]. I pick up (once I’m sure it is the House calling and no one else. I don’t like to talk on the phone, unlike Nat).<\/p>\n
S: Hello?
N: Hi
S: Hi, Nat!
N: How you
S: I’m good, how are you?
N: Good.
S: So what’s the weather like there?
N: [pause]…sunny…
S: And who did you work with at [the House]?
N: Evans.
S: Good! And did you do any exercise?
N: Treadmill.
S: That’s really good.
N: Yes.
S: Nat, did you go to work lately?
N: Yes.
S: Where do you work?
N: Papa Gino’s!
S: What do you do at work?
N: You walk…you…put coupons.
S: Wow! So where do you put the coupons?
N: Door.
S: That’s great, Sweetheart.
N: Yes.
S: Okay, well, I’m going to hang up now. I will see you tomorrow, and you know you are going out to dinner with your social group, your friends. And then the next day is the Harlem Globetrotters. And Laura, Kim and Paul will be here. And Grandma and Grandpa. We are having our Passover Seder!
N: YES
S: Okay, bye Darling
N: Good-bye
S: Bye, I love you
N: Bye.
[they hang up]<\/p>\n
This is a boy who could not answer “yes” or “no” when he was 4, 5, 6 — this is nothing short of a miracle. How did it happen, you wonder. I do, too. But it was just long, hard work on his part and his teachers, and growth. No magic pill, no secret anything. He’s got a disability. I respect that.<\/p>\n
I guess he really started being able to converse at 9 or 10. Slowly. Oddly, like a person learning a new language. He swallows some letters. This may be because, as Temple Grandin says, this is how he actually hears words most of the time: some consonants are dropped. (!)<\/p>\n
And gradually, with practice, he has strengthened his ability to think on his feet and answer questions. It’s like Temple Grandin also said, you have to give a long enough response time so that he can process every word, every letter. And what I also do is to add in words that are cues, that are bridges to his finding the answers. So I repeat the word, “work.” And “coupons.” If my question is about the weather, I emphasize “WHAT..” and “WEATHER” so that those are the words he really hears.<\/p>\n
It seems to be working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night, Nat was really on. Lately, it seems that he really wants to talk to us on the phone. Here’s the latest conversation:[phone rings]. I pick up (once I’m sure it is the House calling and no one else. I don’t like to talk on the phone, unlike Nat). S: Hello?N: HiS: Hi, Nat!N: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}