Noa Knows Nose

I love this video for a couple of reasons - both of which have to do with Noa not just repeating stuff, but taking stuff in her own direction.

Not only does she try to say "nose" she also points to her nose - so she is not just repeating the sound back, she is getting what the sound is referring to.

Then she points at her chin and mouth, which comes from a song we do which has to do with touching your ears, eyes, nose, chin, mouth -- the last words of the song are "that's Noa," and she pats herself on the chest for that. But here, not only does she go through the whole rest of the song (which she started in the first place, not me) - she uses the sign for "Noa" that they taught her at school: tapping her chest with 2-fingers (the "n" sign).

So, yeah, this is pretty cool.

Ben and I went to visit a potential school for Noa last week (she has to "transition" next year which is a whole other story of evals, mtgs, trying to figure out where she might fit - I won't get into it now) - all the students were visually impaired, cognitively and usually multiply disabled as well. When we told the staff that Noa signed, they asked is she initiates signs. We kind of laughed and said, "yeah, she's really bossy." And they were so impressed and surprised. I realized later that this may indicate that this isn't the best place for her - it's really hard to evaluate the cognitive ability of a kid who can't see or speak or walk, etc... but it made me realize that the fact that she initiates communication to this degree is probably very meaningful in assessing that. Just something we'll be keeping in mind as we look around...