Got Milk?

Ezra was ready to work on signing for milk when Kailey and I arrived at his house. We decided to try the least intrusive approach to the most intrusive. To do this, we started by modeling the sign for milk. Ezra's mom held the sippy cup of milk while I signed for milk. As soon as I signed for milk, his mom handed me the milk. Then we asked Ezra, "Do you want some milk?" while doing the sign. As we continued to model for him, we would gently touch his hand and say, "milk?" Ultimately, we did hand over hand, and helped him sign for milk.

I wish I would have given Ezra more of a wait time instead of expecting him to sign for milk a few seconds after asking him if he wanted any. His mom and I talked about the importance of looking him in the eyes when we ask him and of giving him the wait time he needs to process things. 

Next week, we are planning on continuing to work on the sign for milk and will reevaluate his interests if he isn't picking it up.

In class, we talked about the importance of carefully planning the words we use in the home because it can cause the parents to become defensive. I asked the mom of one of the other infants if her daughter enjoyed bath time and she immediately became defensive and said, "I don't really have a routine with her. I just bathe her whenever and I don't like to have her sit in the tub because it is slippery." This made me learn the importance of thinking through how I ask something because the intent of my question was to find out if she liked being in the water to see if we could use that as part of our intervention session.