On Repeat

 October 24, 2022 

Bradley doesn’t have a lot of language. He has some pretty good receptive understanding, and if you take the time to repeat, he’s pretty coherent when you make him repeat you word for word, one by one. Sometimes he’ll pop out a word or a few unprompted, but he doesn’t have a lot of spontaneous language. Hence, Speech Therapy. There are times at Speech that he gives them so many words - meanwhile, at home we only ever get a few words at a time. 

The world went nuts there for awhile; still kind of is, and he spent nineteen months staring at people whose mouths were covered by masks. And we tried to fill the gap of language loss, but it has been a struggle. But then when the masks came off, Bradley noticed the difference immediately. When the masks came off, he was fascinated by their absence and once again seeing mouths. Within a couple weeks, we were getting double the amount of words and better enunciation. It was pretty exciting. I couldn’t figure out the sudden burst until a few months ago when I realized he was staring more at everyone’s mouths. 

So that was exciting. He’s repeating words more and more at school and they tell me he’s starting to repeat words in one of their reading songs - as in, someone heard a little voice trying to sing along to the words in the song and they all realized it was Bradley. 

At home here, he listens to the Wiggles, or Scooby Doo, and he tries to copy the sounds in the music. He’s not really articulating much at all, but he’s matching tones. The closest we got to words we all could understand was to Curious George and the song about Spring in the movie about Spring. I’d tell you the name, but there are too many for me to keep track… Bradley could definitely tell you. Anyway, the repetition of the word “Spring” was perfect for him and there were times we could even understand the actual word spring. 🥰 Best thing to ever hear!! 

Knowing that he is constantly trying to repeat what he hears, I try to be really careful what I say around him. During baseball season I sometimes cringe when the air turns blue and wait for Bradley to start repeating some of that blue. But he hasn’t yet. 

What has he done? He repeats his mom. Never fails. I try to always keep it clean, especially around all my kids. But as soon as something slips one of them always picks it up. 

Tonight, I’m trying to get Bradley settled down for the night. He has his CPAP mask on and he’s drinking his juice. But he keeps adjusting and readjusting his nasal mask so that it keeps ending up off his nose, so then I keep putting it back on, and then back on again. I finally look at him, tell him to knock it off. He laughs at me. So I tell him, “You’re a Turkey Butt.” 

Immediately, he grins as he says “Turkey Butt.” 

Argh!!! Why is it always me he copies? And why isn’t it the useful stuff? Nope…. He waits for Turkey Butt. 

I do have to say, when it comes to spontaneous language, my boy is the most polite kid around. He says “please” and “thank you” without prompting. So I guess I’m just waiting for him to say: “Please Turkey Butt, Thank You.” If he ever says that I’ll probably fall out laughing. He ever says that to one of his sister’s and I might just die laughing. Crazy, funny boy! 

So yeah, we‘re always waiting for the words Bradley says and listening to all the ones he doesn’t say now. And this boy has a lot to say. 

31For21 Blog Challenge Down Syndrome Awareness and Acceptance.