Talking Without Words

For a couple of weeks, we have been trying to increase our gestures and facial expressions. We sent off a video to our consultant. She replied that we are doing a great job of communicating without speaking, and that Alan understands us. However, our goal is to not only get this accomplished, but to elicit gestures and facial expressions from Alan.

I have watched Tammy do this with her daughter, Pamela, with great success. I wish I could import Tammy to teach me how to do this with Alan. I asked the consultant if we can talk to Alan a bit about what we expect him to do. She said yes, but not to over-explain, but rather to introduce the idea to him and then set up scenes where he is most likely to respond. One is to change places with him...say at the table, moving only when the guide nods or smiles. The direction of movement can also be done by tilting the head or moving the eyes in the desired direction.

There are a lot of videos of cute little kiddos learning to do this. Their patient parents have set up back yard soccer, walking in the mall and other scenes where success has happened. Last night, at the parent meeting, a dad was showing how his son had learned to take turns playing a board game, with only the gestures and noises he and the grandfather made. Dad said that the little one hardly stayed at the table to play Chutes and Ladders when it was first brought out.

So, along with our holiday preparations tomorrow night, we are going to try to capture Alan on a video to send to our consultant. We need to slow down our actions to speed up his success.