Toy Review Tuesday: Telephone

One of Matthew's favorite toys is the telephone. We got him a Fisher-Price cordless telephone that plays music and various sounds but of course, he thinks the real cordless phone is more interesting to play with. Thankfully, he has never accidentally dialled 911 or any of the saved phone numbers (yet). It's probably just a matter of time before that happens! He has, however, accidentally put the phone on hold and disallowed incoming calls a couple of times.

In selecting a toy phone, my keywords were simple, buttons, and music. I had considered corded phones but decided to go with a cordless phone as it was more portable and Matthew saw us on cordless phones anyway. The Fisher-Price phone met my criteria. Matthew likes it almost as much as he likes the real phone. It's simple, has easy-to-push buttons and plays music. It's easy for Matthew to hold up to his ear. It was also less than $10 (brand new). Other phones that had more bells and whistles cost more and I just didn't think we needed to spend a lot on a toy phone.

Seeing Matthew babble on the phone always makes me chuckle. I realize that he's probably imitating me on the phone (except I'm not as animated). It's very entertaining to hear him babbling away in a very animated manner and practicing different inflections as you will see in this video. Enjoy!

Preschool Gym

In addition to the home-based physical therapy services that Matthew receives, I take him to preschool gym at our local YMCA. It's a weekly 45-minute parent-child class for babies and toddlers. The YMCA sets up various climbing equipment made of foam and miscellaneous toys. The class is unstructured so it is up to me to direct Matthew's activity and interaction with the other kids.


Matthew was 15 months old when we first enrolled in the class in January last year. He was only commando crawling (belly crawling) then. I remember that he wasn't comfortable with the loud gym on the first day I took him to the class. There were at least 10 other kids playing and an aerobics class blaring loud hip hop music nearby. He wasn't upset or crying although he wanted me to carry him the whole time. But he acclimated to the loud environment by the second class.

In a few days, he'll be 2 years and 4 months old (28 months). He can walk all around, crawl through the tunnels, climb and walk up and down inclines unassisted, and loves it when I help him do logrolls down the big foam wedge that is usually set up in the middle of the gym.




The other parents that I've gotten to know in the class over the year are amazed at his gross motor development and they are always so happy to see him in the class. And I'm happy to have him in the class as it gives him the opportunity to explore in a safe environment outside the home, see and interact with other kids around his age, and further develop and practice gross motor skills.

DVD Review: Discovery - Pathways to Better Speech for Children with Down Syndrome

This DVD was written, produced, and directed by Will Schermerhorn.
Running time: 81 minutes.

I watched this because I am concerned with Matthew's speech. He is speech delayed and watching this DVD is part of my research on the topic. I want to understand speech and language development and get ideas to help me help Matthew.

If Matthew was not speech delayed, I would still watch this. One of my long-term speech goals for him is good articulation, specifically the ability to clearly pronounce different consonant and vowel sounds for clear speech.

The film is well done and easy to follow with emphasis on factors that matter in speech and language development for kids with Down syndrome. Chapters included (as copied from the back of the DVD case):
- The Child Discovers the World
- Communication Milestones
- Hearing Issues
- Encouraging Speech
- Sign Language
- Making Speech Understandable
- Talking Begins
- Building Vocabulary & Grammar
- Text & Reading
- The World Discovers the Child

I appreciated how the film incorporated interviews with different families together with opinions from experts on the subject such as Dr. Libby Kumin, author of Comprehensive Speech and Language Treatment for Infants, Toddlers, and Children with Down Syndrome and other books, and Professor Sue Buckley. I found inspiration and comfort in listening to other families' experiences with speech and language.

There was a lot of good information presented in the film that I found myself taking notes while watching, as if I were back in school. I think that every person who watches this film will learn something. I did. I found that the following key points and information stood out to me:

- The "typical" toddler develops and takes off with speech between ages 2 and 4. A child with Down syndrome usually takes off with speech between ages 4 and 6 (but this isn't always the case. I'm sure some may develop speech sooner and maybe some later. I think they just have the age range as a general guideline).

- Speech Milestones are:

• cooing

• babbling

• lalling - imitating environment sounds

• echolalia - repeating sounds made by others

• true speech - the first words, 2-word phrases, 3-word phrases, early sentences

- Sign language aids communication when used as a bridge to talking.

- Kids learn language best through sensory experiences.

- Keep a list of words the child understands and work on adding more. For words the child knows, work on getting him to say them.

Overall, I recommend watching this DVD. Have you seen it? What do you think?

2-Year Old Communication Frustration

I dare say that most if not all parents have some level of communication frustration with their 2-year old. The level of frustration is elevated when the toddler is speech-delayed. Matthew is 2 years old and is speech-delayed. It's common among kids with Down syndrome. I recently learned that the "typical" toddler takes off with speech and language between the ages 2 and 4 while speech for a child with Down syndrome takes off between ages 4 and 6.

Sign language has definitely been a good tool for us. It is our bridge to talking and allows Matthew to communicate with us since his speech has not developed yet. However, there are a few words that Matthew has no signs for. What do we do? I can teach him more signs. It's easy enough to look up signs on sites such as Signing Savvy. In the meantime however, we usually get into a guessing game. I try to guess what Matthew is trying to communicate. When I guess correctly, he'll giggle and smile. When I'm wrong, he'll shake his head "no" and/ or grunt.

Matthew knows at least 30 sign words but his vocabulary is growing and I have not taught him the sign for every word he knows. His babbling is emerging and he can make some consonant sounds like da, pa, t, sss, and ba. He said ba-ba a few times before for "bubbles" but it hasn't been consistent so we keep working at it. His latest speech-related progress is that he's vocalizing the consonant sound in some words that he is familiar with. For example, he'll say t for "cat" and "eat". And he'll say sss for "baby signing time" or "stairs".

Understanding More Than He Can Verbally Express
We ran into a problem recently and I'm sure this won't be the last time this will happen. He came to me and said "sss" with his hands positioned as if signing "baby". So naturally, I guessed, "Do you want to watch your Baby Signing Time video?" To my surprise, he shook his head "no". I tried a few other words like "stairs", "puzzle", "slide", "kiss", "eat", "music", "ball", "crackers", "cereal", (note that he can clearly sign eat, music, ball, crackers, and cereal but I guessed those words anyway) and a few other possible activities he likes.

He shook his head "no" and grunted to everything and was visibly getting frustrated and upset that I wasn't understanding him. I felt helpless not being able to understand him. Then out of desperation, I said, "Bubbles. Do you want to play with bubbles?" He finally giggled and smiled - meaning "yes!" How he meant "bubbles" out of "sss" is beyond me but I was glad we got over that hurdle.

This brings to mind something I've heard and read: "Children with Down syndrome usually understand more than they can express through talking." How very true in our case!

Verbal Apraxia
He knew what he was trying to say. He was trying very hard to tell me what he wanted. The problem was that his thought didn't translate into the speech that we readily know and understand. So maybe in his mind he was saying "ba-ba" but instead he was verbalizing "sss". I'm guessing this is an indication of verbal apraxia.

Childhood verbal apraxia affects the motor planning or programming of speech sounds which basically means (and correct me if I'm wrong) an inability for the brain to signal the right mouth muscles to move in order to make the correct sound for the word in mind. It doesn't mean he will never learn to talk. It just means he will need to learn to make the sounds individually before combining sounds.

His speech therapist thinks that Matthew may have verbal apraxia but he was probably too young to be diagnosed. Whether he has verbal apraxia or not, we've agreed to just approach his speech therapy sessions with that in mind. So far, we've been emphasizing certain strong consonant sounds during play and showing Matthew how the sounds are made. For example, "mmmm" is said with the lips together and I let Matthew put his hand on my lips so he can also "feel" the mmmm sound.

Picture Cards to Communicate
If Matthew could point to what he wanted, I think it would make things a little easier. But he doesn't point. We're still working on pointing. I encourage him to point at pictures in his books and to objects around him but it seems that pointing doesn't come naturally for him. His speech therapist has incorporated using picture cards for the different activities and toys she prepares for him. So before presenting the actual activity or toy, she shows him two picture choices and encourages him to point at what he would like to do.

The picture cards that I made for him are great for helping label objects, activities, and people he is familiar with. Matthew is a visual learner and he also learns by doing. I made these cards with the idea that they would provide a visual for vocabulary-building and eventually learning sight words. The photos are on the front of the card and the word is on the back. He loves to babble while looking at his picture cards. Lately, his favorite card is a photo of his Grandpa. He says "pa" and signs "Grandpa" while looking at it.

However, all his picture cards are all mixed together in one bag. I think my next project is to group them by activity, family, food, and so on. I also need to add more pictures (note to self: add one for bubbles.)

Local Author Series Event

Every third Thursday of each month, our local public library features a local author. My sister-in-law, Kristin Enkvetchakul, was featured this month. She authored a cookbook, "Introduction to Asian Cooking" and wrote an essay about Matthew in "Gifts 2: How People with Down Syndrome Enrich the World", which was edited by Kathryn Lynard Soper. Both books were featured at the library event. In addition to promoting "Gifts 2" and "Introduction to Asian Cooking", Kristin also mentioned Kathryn Lynard Soper's book "The Year My Son and I Were Born" and donated a copy to the library.


Kristin's cookbook contains recipes and information on Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese food, including sushi. While she was working on her cookbook, I enjoyed every dish she made for me to sample. If she started a catering business offering dishes out of her cookbook, I'd hire her all the time (at the "family rate/discount"). By the way, if anyone would like to buy a signed copy of her cookbook, please contact me for details.

The local newspaper published an article about the event and described Kristin's essay in Gifts 2 as:

"...talks about her gratitude to previous generations of parents of children with Down syndrome who would no longer accept the societal norm of these children being swept away to institutions and disregarded. Thanks to them, her dear nephew, who brings his family so much joy, is part of a much more welcoming world, a world that is ready to love and accept him, and see his abilities instead of only disabilities."

I counted 27 people in attendance, including Bill, Matthew and I. That's a great turn-out since the room seated a maximum of 27 people. Matthew was being a little shy but his presence certainly captured the audience's attention. He was undoubtedly the star (sorry, Auntie Kristin) and I was happy to share him with the audience.