Shapes & Colors

Recently I have been discouraged with Wesley's development, finding myself comparing him to other children with special needs and then concluding in my mind that he is lagging behind.  For example, when I read about children with Down syndrome who head off to preschool already knowing their letters, numbers and colors, it is easy to sit there and think, "Wow! I'm not even sure Wesley will know these things by the time he goes to kindergarten".

Wesley's sensory issues and struggles with motor planning have played a huge part in his delays in other areas. He still struggles to sit still and concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time, and it is very difficult for him to learn motor plans for vocalizing sounds and forming hand movements, which has led to delayed communication.

Because we have been working so much to help Wesley regulate his body and communicate his basic needs, working on things like letters, colors, numbers and shapes have fallen by the wayside.  I just started labeling shapes for Wesley a few months ago, and we only added color labeling into the mix of activities in the past two weeks.

 

Knowing how long it has taken Wesley to learn new things in the past, I fully expected to continue to work on shapes and colors for months if not years before seeing him really begin to pick up on these concepts.  So when I pulled out Wesley's shape sorter and pegboard yesterday to work with him, my expectations were quite low.  Much to my surprise, when I gave him a choice of two shapes, 3 out of 4 times he chose the correct one.  He made excellent eye contact, closely examining each shape before making his choices, so I knew his correct choices were not accidental.  Then, when we moved on to colors, he again chose the correct color 3 out of 4 times when I gave him a choice of two colors.  I kept giving him color choices, using two pegboard pieces that were different colors but the same shape, thinking that surely he hadn't learned his colors this well after only a few weeks.  Each time I gave him a choice, he only confirmed that indeed he did know which color to choose.

As we were working on colors, Daddy walked in the door from work, and just to confirm that this was no fluke, Wesley showed off his new color identification skills to Daddy too.  To say that we were astounded would be an understatement.  In fact, Daddy had no idea that Wesley even had the concept of color matching, much less color identification.

I was grateful for the reminder from the Lord that He is indeed at work in Wesley's life.  Just because Wesley is struggling to communicate does not mean that he is not learning.  The fact that he is learning his colors and shapes so quickly shows that his receptive language is developing quite well.

On top of this, over the past few days Wesley has been trying to imitate words more often.  He still has very few consonants and not all of his vowels, and he attempts to speak on inhalation rather than exhalation, so we have a long way to go with working on airflow.  But he is TRYING, and that is a huge step when the motor plan for speaking is so very difficult for him.

Wesley, your Mama and Daddy are so very proud of you!  You continue to amaze us with all that you are learning and doing.  We can't thank God enough for blessing us with such a wonderful son!

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."
Psalm 139:13-16