Water

Have I mentioned lately how much I love GiGi's school?  Her teacher Leah is working on her degree in early childhood special education (how perfect is that?!) and is working on a research study on early childhood communication (again, how perfect?!).  Every morning when I drop G off for school, the first thing she does is go to the little sink to wash her hands.  Yesterday morning, Leah helped her put on the soap and then asked GiGi, "what do you need now?".  GiGi hesitated for a minute (she knew I was watching her...) and then pointed to the faucet and said "Wa Wa!".  I've never ever heard her even say the "W" sound, let alone say water!  Leah has been working with her on this as a part of her research study and I can't believe how quickly she was successful!  I know this seems like such a minor achievement, but what seems like a small thing is usually a huge accomplishment for Gianna.  Of course it immediately reminded me of the story of Helen Keller and how learning the word "water" was a breakthrough for her.  GiGi has been diagnosed with something called apraxia of speech.  Children with apraxia of speech "have great difficulty planning and producing the precise, highly refined and specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for intelligible speech".   I've read guidelines that children with apraxia should have one-on-one speech therapy 3-5 times per week.  That's not possible for us right now, but she does get speech therapy once per week and her other therapists and teachers are very supportive of carrying through on her speech goals.  Gianna is LOVING learning sign language, but verbalizing sounds and words is much much more difficult for her.  So hearing her try to say "water" made my week!!
Here's a little video of Gianna that I love.  We got her this "rollercoaster" as an early birthday present.  It was listed as a toy that would be helpful to kids who are working on increasing their balance.  And, probably more importantly, she thinks it's a blast!  Also, it shows her using 3 of her favorite signs: "more", "yes" and "please".