Sheridan Will Make You Jump, Jump

We have a new, emerging skill 'round these parts! Gettin' real air!

Apraxia & Literacy

Sheridan loves to read. Loves his letters, loves his books. He asks us to read books to him more times in a day than I can count. He pulls out books to read on his own - he can often be found sitting in the middle of books spread out around him on the floor (he knows the stories and retells them to read them).

And research shows that children with Apraxia of Speech typically struggle (a lot) with reading and writing.

So, we foster Sheridan's love for all things reading any chance we get. He's hungry for it. So why not give him plenty of opportunities?

This is a quick video of a recent speech session where his SLP uses his Kauffman cards with sight words to form a simple sentence ("I have..."). We're also using "I see" and "I want." We will slowly expand the use of sight words to help him with both reading and expanding his sentence usage (lately he's been doing great stringing up to six words together, e.g., "Daddy, I want more water please."). I should note here that Sheridan has a decent number of sight words, but in speech we're focusing on those necessary for building sentences.

What's interesting to me, I noticed when I looked at a couple of these videos that Sheridan has more speech errors on these Kauffman cards when used in a sentence, than when he does them as simple flashcards. In other words, he can say the words more clearly and more consistently when he does them individually, than when compared to using them in a longer string of words. Which in a way makes sense, given that the more a child with Apraxia says, the more errors you tend to see. And if you haven't seen previous videos go here to get some background on Apraxia and Sheridan's progress.

Check out Sheridan rockin' the sight words, sentences, and Kauffman cards. I love that speaking voice of his!

Joy

Sending you wishes for a 2012 full of...

love

warmth

joy

peace

wonder

security

comfort

and laughter.

Happy New Years from The Lindseys.

Oh, and here's a shameless dump of more cute pictures of little man and the fam.

Sheridan's Debut Performance

Sheridan's class hosted a Holiday Tea & Sing... the children sang about 10 holiday songs (plus three songs about the geography they are learning: the continents and the countries in North & South America). Two songs were in Spanish. After the singing, everyone enjoyed the cookies the children baked in class. 

The Program

This was Sheridan's debut musical performance. I mean, c'mon. This is big, y'all. He's in his element, right?! His friends, music, singing, gestures for each song. He is going to rock. it. out.

Eat your heart out. That's right. He busted out with a tie and matching chucks.

He's been singing all of these songs nonstop. Every day. It took me a couple weeks to figure out what he was singing - Up on the Rooftop is definitely his favorite, followed by Cascabel and La Pulga de San Jose (which he actually calls La Guitarra because part of the song is about playing a guitar). 

Yep, you read that correctly. Sheridan is singing songs in Spanish. Don't even get me started on how proud I am of him...

So the moment arrives. The audience is standing room only (at least 70 adults in the room?), everyone is hushed, the children walk in and take their places...

And Sheridan... just... sits there. 

Sitting in the front, fourth from the right.

When I say he sat there, I mean that's all he did. You could tell he was just taking in the sea of people in front of him. And he watched his classmates sing around him.

Originally, we tried to hide and make sure he wouldn't spot us in the crowd, thinking he might be distracted. But then Gary felt that Sheridan was trying to find us in the mass crowd of people. So, we stood up and made sure Sheridan could see us singing along. He got excited. Gave us a few waves.

I love his waves here...

And you know what? I'm very proud of him for sitting with his classmates through the entire show. Because other kids were dropping like flies. Some of the other children either had to go sit down with their families or a teacher, and a couple refused to even be part of the concert.

His teachers were proud of him, too. After the concert, one of the moms (she volunteers in the classroom one day a week) said she's seen all the children practicing for weeks, and she pointed at Sheridan and smiled and said, "I've seen you sing these songs! I know you can sing them." Sheridan laughed.

As soon as we got to the cookie part of the evening he started singing to the whole room full of people. Stinker.

Grandpa & Nanny Airplane were there. So was Nonna, but I didn't get a picture :(

Some pictures of Sheridan and his classmates...

It's a big decision: the cookie, or the pretty girl?

How about both?

I definitely need to write a post about Sheridan's school. He loves it. We love it. They love him. Can you tell?

I'll post something soon...

Discussion of the Owies

Sheridan's open heart surgery to repair his four congenital heart defects was back in May 2010, a full 18 months ago. His recovery was quick and amazing. And he never really paid much attention to his resulting scar, until now.

His Becca's dad (Mr. Jimmy) had his third open heart surgery about a month ago. One of Mr. Jimmy's first requests upon his release from the hospital was to see Sheridan (Sheridan really is a true member of their family). And Sheridan saw Mr. Jimmy's "zipper." And the two of them had a conversation about each other's "owies." So, for the first time, he had an interest and cause to talk about his scar.

I can't explain why, but I'm really happy that Sheridan is talking about it. Maybe it's his awareness that he's not the only one who has a scar. Maybe it's because I get to tell him what an amazing little man he his - a true Big Boy - that he had surgery and was tough and now he's ok. Better, even. 

The only drawback to this new-found interest: Sheridan is intent on finding an owie on everyone now. Ladies, be warned. He will try to pull your shirt down to look at your chest. He's only looking for a scar, though... I think.

I showed him my scar from a laparoscopic surgery I had on my stomach years ago. He likes to talk about "Mama's owie" and "Daddy's owie" (remember Gary's life-saving surgery on Sheridan's second birthday?) and his own owie. It's interesting to see how important it is to Sheridan that we all have owies, even if they are different. Almost like it's comforting, but also because he really likes to be just like us.

I'm curious to see over time how he reacts to (or doesn't care about) his scar. It was one of my biggest concerns before his surgery, and even after meeting a young man who was proud of his scar, I was still concerned for Sheridan. Now I don't give it a second thought, even though it is quite large and noticeable (he developed a pretty significant keloid). Check it out for yourself in this video I posted six months ago.

He's definitely gonna rock that scar, his girlfriends will think he's SO cool for having it, and he'll take comfort in knowing he's not the only person with one.