It has been a while since I posted, so I thought I would give a status update on Kevin's progress.

The other night I was awaken by Kevin stirring and talking. I went to his room thinking he needed me, only to find him sound asleep. I stayed in his room to make sure he wasn't going to wake up and sure enough, he started talking again! I realized that my deaf son talks in his sleep! It isn't all gibberish, it is actually English that he is saying. I found that to be completely amazing! To me, that signifies that while he is deaf, he is functioning as a hearing child and he has assimilated to this new world we created for him beautifully. I told you he is NEVER quiet... now it is really true! He even talks in his sleep!!!

His progress is coming along really well. He has always had trouble with 's' and 'f', but he says those on the end of words almost all the time. That means that he says plurals really well. His middle 's' and 'f' is coming along nicely too. The initial ones are still really hard for him, but if I stop him and correct him, he can do it. Actually, I have started acting like I don't know what he is talking about and he self corrects himself. For instance, he'll say 'do you ee that'? I'll respond with 'hmmm, what is ee? I don't know how to ee.' He'll then smile and say, 'do you s-ee that'? So, it is coming. His blend words are easier for him, like star, stop, etc.

The exciting news is his tongue movement! He can now move his tongue all the way to the left, right, and down. He still can't raise it up, but I am assuming that will come next. We have been working a lot on oral motor therapy hoping that will correct his articulation and it seems to be working.

Artic aside, his language is amazing! He seems to have full grasp of the English language (for a 2.5 year old) and says very complex sentences. I still think that he focuses so much on what to say because he has soooo much to say and so he gets lazy with some sounds. He is making huge progress all the time, though, so I'm sure it will all fall into place soon. He took another artic test yesterday, so I am anxious to see the results. I know he made a lot of progress since his last one 6 months ago...