Update - September - Matai is 4

It's been a while! 

I still think that this blog is a good place to share things for Matai's development, however I appear to have been off my game over the past 6 months. 
So it must be time to remedy that!

Matai turned 4

Last week was Matai's 4th birthday.  Thank you to all of you who made it special for him, this year he had a better understanding of gifts and enjoyed opening these, even making the appropriate noises sometimes ...'wow'.
Birthday cake is by far his favourite part about turning 4, and indeed a big favourite part of life in general.  He enjoys enacting out blowing out candles and if there's ever cake on offer.... well I apologise in advance for his mad mouth-stuffing skills, just know that he is getting immense pleasure out of it! ;)

At 4, it feels like time to take stock of where we are at:

Speech

Matai seems to have had a little burst of confidence in the last couple of months.  He is much more likely to imitate words now and have a go.  He has a lot of vocabulary (in his head) but more and more (if you listen really hard) he is attempting words in everyday life.  Until now he has always kept his talking for home and 'safe' situations, however I think that preschool should be able to hear more words more regularly these days - the challenge will be to make out what each word is. 
Two word utterances are fairly regular now and three words pop up every now and again. 

Matai loves to converse. He 'chats' all the time and he is really telling stories.  A regular time for doing this is when Aaron comes home from work, or when he is talking on the telephone.  If you listen hard, you can make out names or words that have happened during the day, and it is very clear that this conversation has meaning for Matai.  He will pause and wait for you to respond, and get very frustrated if you don't (he really doesn't mind what exactly you say, he will roll with it).  I doubt these conversations are making it to preschool but I am hopeful that he will be brave enough to engage a few more of his special people over time.

Social Skills

This has been a very big area of interest/concern for Aaron and I over the last 6 months.  We know that Matai doesn't know how to initiate interactions with other kids and engage properly, but we are seeing him want to do this more and more.  I have been very worried about how other kids might perceive him and whether or not they are able to have positive interactions with him, so that they might be encouraged to join in with him in the future.  I believe that Matai has as much to offer them in terms of learning about the world, as they do for him, however I appreciate that they all need adult help and role-modelling in how to have meaningful and positive interactions.  I have been doing a lot of reading and learning about inclusion and how beneficial it can be to all parties involved.  At preschool, the children are not yet prone to the same judgements or bias as they may be down the track and so I see it as a critical time for learning about how everybody is different and that differences are to be celebrated.
I would love Matai to be able to help teach others, yet my concern is that without the verbal communication skills, he will stick to his own happy self, and learning opportunities for both Matai and others may be missed.  I think Matai is at risk of 'muddling through' reasonably successfully... this is of course is not a bad thing, but being a hopeful mum, I wish for the very best situation for all.

In the meantime I am regularly sending laminated photos to preschool with Matai, to help create a starting point for interactions.  I have been writing a sentence or two on the back of each photo to give an adult some background and I try to underline words that Matai can say and that you might hear.  I hope that these might help Matai to have a meaningful communication with adults and that another child might be drawn in as part of the conversation if interested.


Gross Motor

Matai can ride a scooter now. Pretty cool.



Small Motor

We have a long way to go here.  I have noticed that he has been able to turn some of his toys on and off now, using a switch, which is good progress.  Pre-writing skills remain a challenge and need on-going patience and attention.  Matai still needs to use a proper pencil grip.  I am hopeful that time on the 4 year old mat seeing others writing, will encourage him to want to have a better go at these things.


Comprehension

Counting
- Matai has rote learned how to count to 10.  He often starts at 2 rather than one.  He knows that it is what you do, with each object one at a time when you have many things or pictures in front of you.  However, I don't think that he understands the concept of counting yet.

Colours
- Yeah, nah, nothing doing yet!

Books
- It is harder to get Matai to sit down and read to him now, because he really just wants to sit with books on his own, and he can do this for up to half an hour at a time.  When we read to him, we have to factor in time for him to have a go at reading it to himself after we finish.  So books still remain a biggie, and recently Matai showed off pretty awesome memory skills by remembering all the key information from 'Today is Monday' by Eric Carle.  He could remember what objects occurred on which day without needing the pictures in front of him.  I think this shows that rhyme and rhythm are very powerful for Matai's learning.  We were particularly impressed because this book was a library book and we had only been reading it for a week.

Singing
- whenever he can.  Matai is starting to sing along to songs in the car, it is becoming a good way for him to practise his speech.



New Interests and Activities

Matai's interest in the Wiggles has increased, encouraged by a trip to Dunedin for the concert which he was enthralled in!  We love them too, however we are needing to manage DVD time, as it has become a preferred 'go to' for Matai.

Matai has been doing a preschool music class (Kennedy School of Music) on a Friday after school.  It is preschool rhymes/songs with a bit of rhythm, listening and instrument use.  He loves it.  As much as anything, I am enjoying the social interactions that he is getting out of it as much as the music.  Mia goes along too which is nice for them both.

Books and Music - babble explosion

Reading books, singing and telling stories - Matai's long 'chat' has taken off recently!

Reading books
 Matai has upped his reading.  He takes himself to our 'reading corner' 3 or 4 times daily, grabs himself a very large pile of books and spends 20 minutes reading them to himself.

  He is at the stage now where he will read every page and whilst I can't understand most of what he is saying, the odd word comes through and the story is constant.   It is pretty cool and I love that he gets so much enjoyment out of reading.  He also now says 'read' when he is making his way to the books.  Photo books are still his favourite but anything familiar will work. 
Of interest is that we have a sounds book 'The Noisy Book' by Soledad Bravi and each page has a picture and the words 'the donkey says.... Hee Haw' etc.  Just in the last few months we have realised that Matai can do all of the sounds by heart.  The visual aid is huge for Matai and key to tap into.  The approximation of the sounds is not too bad either.  But I guess the key thing that comes out of this is that his confidence has grown.  He would've used to refuse to attempt most of these sounds, however now he is happy to give them a go and if one doesn't come out right he isn't too bothered. We can get through the whole book, whereas in the past it might have been thrown away if things became too hard.

Singing Songs
Again, just in the last few weeks we have witnessed an explosion of singing!  He has some very well worn music DVDs and it used to be all actions that would come out of watching them but now we are getting word approximations and some kind of tune!  This morning he has been singing 'all day long' from The wheels on the Bus and this is pretty cool considering we haven't heard him put 3 words together in other areas of language yet.  It is also fun to sing the songs to/with him and leave out words for him to put in eg. Row, row your ________ . 

Telling Stories
The other noteable verbal development is that Matai will now tell very long stories that he fully expects you to listen to and he gets quite annoyed if you cut in or take your attention away.  The stories have gestures attached and seem to have genuine meaning to him.  We hear these the best when Aaron comes home from work. Aaron will asks what Matai did today and Matai's answer is long and detailed.  The exciting most recent thing is that after Matai has his own go at babbling, I will help out by saying something like 'We went to the _______', and Matai often makes an approximation at the word (in this instance 'park') and 'Matai went down the ______' (slide).

I am excited about this increase in chat and babble.  Matai wants to communicate and often finds it frustrating when he can't, but I feel like his confidence is growing lately.  I don't know if any of this will be seen at preschool or not but 1:1 I am sure it can be brought out and I know Matai feels that his talk is of value when he is listened to.

:)  Happy chatty days.