She just needs the means

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Sophia has been doing amazing the last couple of weeks. There has been a lot of progress in several areas: gross and fine motor skills as well as in communication. After the surgery and being a month in the cast, things were kind of on stand by but then all of a sudden she is crawling and moving better than ever, we can see that she wants to walk and is practicing and getting better at it. Sophia is also grabbing the spoon and tolerating assistance in feeding herself. She is grabbing her bottle and bringing it to her mouth at least twice each day which is a lot more than a few weeks ago. All these advances are proof that there's a lot more to Sophia and that her potential is far bigger than what we can see now.

There has been a lot of progress in the communication department which  I am particularly excited about. Sophia doesn't talk but she is finding ways to let us know what she wants. She makes different sounds and that's how I know if she is happy or if something is bothering her. She grabs my hand and puts it next to her spoon to ask for more food or sometimes she gives me a toy to let me know that she wants me to play with her. The other night she crawled to us and made a different sound while looking upstairs and raising her arms, it was very clear that she wanted us to take her to bed. Most of the time, I can get what she wants to say but when there's something specific that she needs we both get lost in the frustration.

We need a tool. The desire is there, Sophia wants to communicate and knows that in order to get what she wants or needs she needs to let me know somehow. At the end of last year, we got approved for an iPad and an app. Unfortunately there have been delays and we haven't been able to start using it. I am working on it and as of today it seems like we are going to be able to start next week. But we need something now, Sophia wants to communicate and she is so ready.

This is what her teacher and I came up with:

 She does very good with pictures, much better than with drawings or icons. Real pictures mean something to her and she can relate to them. She can look at picture of a toy and then look for it, I can give her two pictures of two different toys so she can make a choice and she does:

At school she holds a picture of my car and she knows that it's time to go home and looks at the door. This system seems to work but the ultimate goal is for her to take initiative and grab a picture of whatever it is that she wants and gives it to me. It's a lot of work and it takes a lot of patience and consistency but Sophia is worth it and I know, with my all heart I know, that she is going to do it. Sophia wants to communicate with the world, she just need the means to do it.