Bobo Eats Bananas

Yesterday was a full day of speech-related stuff. Peyton and I began the day at Edmond Public Schools to begin the transition process from SoonerStart to the EPS program. He will begin speech therapy with them in August when school starts.
The meeting went well. His current speech pathologist and our SoonerStart coordinator were there and the EPS service coordinator, speech path and hearing-impairment spec were there. They will wait on Peyton's next hearing test to see if he needs the hearing help. If he doesn't, he will stick with the speech therapy only. If he does have hearing loss, they will get him started with the hearing specialist as well. Basically this was a meeting to tell me we had another meeting with our elementary. I think they legally have to tell us we qualify for services, too. It was good for them to all see Peyton play, though. Only Jill, our current speech path, has really gotten to know him. He was really good. He was clearly engaged and curious and different people commented on how observant he was. Anytime we all laughed about anything he would look at us with that smile of his like, 'oh good, you were watching!'.
Then in the afternoon we had speech therapy with Jill and that went really well! Peyton has made SO much progress in just two weeks! He is talking more often on his own and has said two 2-word phrases on his own! Yesterday, though, Jill got him to respond immediately with words. He is beginning to pretend (he hasn't been doing that) and Jill said we need to capitalize on his pretend play. She said kids should increase their verbal abilities when they begin to pretend play because they go through a kind of narrative in their head as they play. Typically kids begin to pretend younger than 3. So she played with one Bobo and he played with the other and you could see the gears begin to turn! Peyton banged on a can like a drum and Jill had Bobo react by putting his hands on his ears b/c it was loud. Peyton loved it! So Jill showed him how to bang the can softly and Bobo danced. Peyton loved it! Sometimes Bobo would bang on the drum and the other Bobo would react. We all did this for a while and then Peyton moved on to feeding Bobo. When Peyton said Bobo and then put the plastic bananas to his mouth Jill said 'Bobo eats bananas'. Peyton repeated 'Bobo eat'. So Jill said 'Bobo eats bananas' again. Peyton said "Bobo eat banana'!!! She said now is the time to narrate what Peyton is doing as he pretend plays. He needs help putting the narrative in his head as he plays but once we give him the words, that will help solidify the words for him and he should be able to put them together. By the end of the session, he had said several new two-word phrases on his own and could repeat three word phrases if he was playing.
Jill said he is doing so well that we are going to stop focusing on one or two letters at a time and just correct his speech as it comes. We might be correcting every word sometimes but thats okay. And he doesn't have to correct the word right then, just hear it. We are just supposed to repeat the word correctly and then move on. And when he says one word like 'Drink', we should expand by one word and say 'Drink milk'. And then if he repeats that we can add another word. She actually said she expects his speech to take off in the next couple of months. Based on the amount of progress he has already made, I am confident he will, too.