Back to speech therapy

   Today was Elijah's first day back to speech therapy since his tension release surgery.  It has been over a month!  I really thought Elijah was going to have a rough day, it being the 1st time back in so long, but he ROCKED it!  He always amazes me!
   Of course he worked with his eyemax.  If you don't know what that is I will explain really quick that way it isn't confusing.  The eyemax is an eye gaze communication device.  It calibrates your eyes and lets you make choices depending on what you look at.  It is kind of like an i pad but bigger.  It has buttons on the screen that you choose with your eye gaze.  Basically your eyes are the computer mouse.  You stare at what ever button you want to choose and it slowly fills red from the bottom to the top.  When it fills all the way to the top it selects the button and says the word for you.  It is really cool!  But you do have to keep your eyes in a window for the device to read them properly.  It tells you if you are in the window by 2 little lights on the bottom.  If they are both green you are in the right position.

   Elijah was a little cranky at first but I brought some new toys for him to choose with his box.  So after he saw the new buttons for the toys he perked up.  He went through all of the buttons and played with all of the toys.  We added the pinwheel button last.  That is his favorite toy.  We showed him the pinwheel first.  He reached for it but the therapist told him, "no, you have to tell me first."  He immediately looked at the device and found the pinwheel button.  He stared at it, the button filled red, and it said, "pinwheel."  So she gave him the pinwheel.  After letting Elijah play with it for a while she took it back.  He got a little mad and started banging the table.  The therapist decided to change the positioning of the buttons to make sure he would really look at the button of the toy he was wanting to play with.  He looked and once again found the pinwheel button even though it was in a different spot.  We cheered and gave him back the pinwheel!  He smiled and clapped his hands!  He also did very well with keeping his eyes in the window for the device to read them.  He really didn't make the connection before but today!  He was really concentrating on holding his head very still to make his selection.  So he had a very good day!  It is so good to be back!