Sing me a song....or not :)

Two of Erin's favorite things in life are singing songs and reading books. She could do these activities for hours each day! She has memorized many the words to songs and books. Now, she cannot verbalize all of the words that she knows...she does have Down syndrome, after all.  And with Ds comes a speech delay. (For anyone who has had a toddler, you know there is a stage of development where your child is beginning to talk but it is difficult to understand him. It is the same for those with Ds, but most often this stage is prolonged. Other times there are other speech issues involved such as apraxia and low muscle tone.  Yes, low muscle tone, even in the mouth, plays a role....but now I'm getting off topic).  But speech delay does not necessarily mean a delay in receptive language skills (at least not for the child...sometimes it may mean a delay in receptive language for the parents...at least until they figure out what their child is trying to say! LOL). That is the case with Erin. She understands much much more than she is able to verbalize. How do we know this? Well, first of all, she responds to what we are saying to her. For example, she can identify all the fruits and vegetable, or animals, in a book when we ask her to point to them. She also has nearly 100 signs, several words and many word approximations (words that sound close enough to the proper pronunciations that we are able to figure them out).

Erin "talks" all the time. She's quite the little chatter box. Most of the time we can understand just what she is saying to us, using a combo of signs and word approximations. Once in a while, however, we just don't have a clue : ) This video illustrates one of those times.  Teresa keeps trying to figure out what Erin is saying with not much luck. Erin continues to interrupt her by saying Tsza (Teresa!!!) and repeating her request.  Together they keep trying, but finally Erin gives up...

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Upon further review, here is the interpretation...

The clip begins with Erin asking Tsza (Teresa) to sing a particular song with her.(Erin can now sign about half the letters of the alphabet, so some of those signs you see are letters).

Teresa begins singing the alphabet song, but Erin quickly says, NO! Erin then signs and says, red, one, two, three, purple (when she puts her hand down and says ba-pur, she is signing and saying purple).

Teresa picks up on red and begins singing The Color Song.  No go.

Erin interrupts again, saying Tsza!, then again says, red, one, two, three, purple....Clearly, Teresa is lost LOL. Erin tries again with the same request. Teresa ties again. Erin emphasizes purple once again. Perhaps this is a song she made up?!

Then I ask her what song she wants to sing. She says, red, e, d (as in the letters), followed again by, purple.  Again, no go. 

Sorry Erin...we just can't keep up with you on this one! 

The highlight of this clip is most definitely the ending. Erin gets frustrated with Teresa and me for not being able to properly interpret what she is saying. That Down syndrome accent can be tricky :) So she exits the scene, flailing over the side of the couch. Her final words are very appropriate:  hep meeee!!! (help me!!!).

She sure cracks me up. Oh my, is she a charmer!