Making it Click

It’s a struggle to get Eli interested in learning. Every child is different so there isn’t a one size fits all for learning. You can read blogs, ask a doctor, get advice from friends and family; but at the end of the day what works for others may not work for yours. Eli started making progress over the past 7 months and I can say it’s from finding the one thing that just made it click for him. We would try countless things with no progress then we found the one that worked and BAM he was hooked. Let me give some examples. 
1. Talking. Eli obviously didn’t talk the first three years of life. When we started his therapy trifecta (speech, OT, and ABA) he started with some basics “hi, bye, mama, daddy, etc). But when speech introduced him to Kaufman cards- he took off. It changed how we were introducing these words to him and making it easier for him to say. These cards have different stages on how to have the child pronounce the word from baby speak to correct pronunciation. Since introducing these cards he went from maybe 15 words to over 200. 

2. Reading. Along with talking, I could not get Eli to sit down and read a book with me until just recently. He had no patience to listen to boring stories. He could get talked into doing a couple interactive books if they had flaps or windows to open. Then 1-2 months ago while trying to get him to sleep I asked if he wanted to read a book and he surprisingly said yes. I grabbed 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed. He was instantly hooked. We read it every night for a week. Soon he was saying the lines himself. After that he started getting into cloudy with a chance of meatballs because he had seen the movies. Now he HAS to have stories before bed and he’ll beg for more when I’m finished. 

3. Music. Eli never paid attention to music much before. I could count on one hand how many times I saw him dance until recently. He never sang and rarely danced. He never paid music in general much attention. Until November when we went to see the trolls movie. He fell IN LOVE. He loves everything trolls. But more than anything he loved the music. One day he asked to watch the movie but it obviously wasn’t out on DVD yet since it was still in theatre. So I asked if he just wanted to listen to music? I found the soundtrack on YouTube and then every day on the way to and from school we had to listen to “poppy song”. When we listen to it at home he dances nonstop and sings along to the words! This little boy who just started talking 6 months ago has memorized works to a song and sings them out loud. I am blown away​

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For us it’s just a game of trial and error until we find something that just makes it click for Eli. He just needs one thing that makes it interesting or easier and he flourishes. Now I just need to find the thing that makes potty training click for him!