A Georgia Girl in Germany

Benjamin has been attending speech therapy for several months now to help him with articulation and to help him learn how to make certain sounds. He’s really been making wonderful progress, especially considering that he was hardly talking six to seven months ago (relying on signing, pointing and grunting). Not too long ago, if you asked him his name, he would reply “Me.” Since he loves Blue’s Clues, I used a line from one of his movies (“Be-Bop-Bay”) as a guide to get him comfortable with the "B" sound since it's an essential element of his name, and he was soon saying his name…in the form of “Be-Bop-Ben.” He would even tell people his name was “Be-Bop-Ben.” Kinda appropriate with his outgoing personality that he included “Be-Bop” with his name.

Fast forward a few months, and now he’s made even greater progress. Just two nights ago (Nov. 6), out of the blue he said his full name, completely unprompted: “Ben-sha-min.” We were all so excited and started jumping and dancing (he’s my dancer, so that’s real encouragement for him), and he joined in and began repeating, “Ben-sha-min, Ben-sha-min,” with a huge grin on his face so he could watch our reaction. He even told his speech teacher, “My name is Ben-sha-min,” when he went to school yesterday. How awesome! This photo is of him dancing and hopping after saying "Ben-sha-min" for the umpteenth time in a row. He was definitely excited...and still is!

Labels: Benjamin, Kid Quotes