PROGRESS!!

Finally, a post with great news :)

Jayden has been regressing a lot lately due to the increase in his seizure activity. One of the main things we noticed the he lost was his ability to identify the alphabet. It may sound very trivial, but it is very disturbing to see your child go from spelling out words to not being able to identify a single letter. It's extremely hard for me b/c Jayden expressed a love for alphabets very early on. I have a vivid memory of carrying him out of Kohl's one evening, when he was just 2 yrs old when all of a sudden I hear him say "K...O...H...L!" Of course, I know he had no idea what he was spelling, but he saw letters and identified them! And this happened all.the.time. He would pick up the newspaper and start calling out the letters in bold print. Also, I have an Aeropostle shirt that Jayden loves. It has "AERO" on the front and he loved to spell it out. I also have an Air Force shirt with big "AIR FORCE" on it and Jayden would spell that out and then say "Daddy" :)So letters were a big deal to him and it was very painful to watch him lose that. Every letter became B. Even the ABC song was now "B B B B B...." :( We would show him flash cards and every letter to him was B. We tried two letters at a time...A and B, and we would tell him to say A when he sees the A card. He'd repeat after us, but when asked what the A was, he would say B. My Aero shirt meant nothing to him anymore. Letters meant nothing to him anymore. I was very discouraged and worried about him. His teacher told me it wasn't yet an age appropriate skill, but his neurologist did agree with me that the lose of that ability becomes a concern when neurological issues come in to play b/c the brain is being affected.

So in true fashion, I took it upon myself to help my baby :) I ordered him the Leapfrog Learning DVD set. It comes with 3 DVDs (Let's Go To School, Letter Factory, and Talking Words Factory) and alphabet flashcards. It took a while for the set to come in, but it actually came in on the day we left for Panama City, just last Thursday. Jayden instantly loved them. The entire 4 days we spent in the hotel, he requested the DVDs. Whenever he asked to watch a movie in the truck, we turned on the Letter Factory. Before we left Panama City, on Labor Day (only 4 days after watching the videos), Jayden pulled the flashcards out of the box. They were still packaged so of course the only card he could see was the letter A. Remember, before these videos, all letters were B to him. He walked up to me and handed me the cards and said "Mommy, A!!" SO PROUD!! And as if that wasn't enough, last night we were chatting with my mom while she was proofreading nursing notes for her job. Jayden picked one up and grabbed my mom's face and said "You hear me?" (we ask him "Can you hear me?" very often b/c of his staring spells! lol) and then started "reading" the notes to her. On the bottom there are a few sentences in bold, black ink and Jayden pointed to the letters and identified just about all of them!! And this was only 7 days after being introduced to these DVDs!!

I am NOT expecting or even hoping that these DVDs teach Jayden how to read (although these DVDs are highly recommended for teaching early reading skills and is MUCH cheaper than Your baby can Read!). I am simply trying to help him to regain his love for letters. It was something he enjoyed prior to the seizures stealing that from him. His little brain is still so vulnerable, still growing, so there is still hope that he can regain skills that he has lost (or will lose). This is one step in the right direction for him and it certainly puts a smile on my face!