FIVE

One of my job's is working in a local Preschool as a Sign Language Interpreter. ( I really should get into all of my job's sometime ) I was hired specifically to work with this one little girl who is deaf, but has a cochlear implant ( Basically now she can hear ). I spend most of my time teaching her sign, how to hear and how to speak ( These things are all new to her ). Sometimes it's extremely frustrating, she has a tendency to not listen or even watch me.

Since my Supervisor didn't show up yesterday I spent our "reading time" working ( We sat at a little table away from the other kids and distractions ). She picked a book on counting, so we signed together and she repeated what I spoke. Everything was going smoothly until we reached the number 5! Since she's new to speaking she speaks very quietly, and often it's hard to understand her ( After a month I have no troubles understanding her ), so my ear was very close to her face when she was speaking so I was sure she was giving me the correct word ( If she says something wrong I say it slower and make her repeat it again ). When we reached 5 she shouted it, right in my ear! She could tell I was startled and she laughed ( While I checked my hearing ). I was confused for a little while after that as to why she shouted at that number, and then it came to me. She's 5 years old! It's a big deal you know!! But even more exciting is the fact that while we continued on the numbers she started signing animals in the book all on her own! ( This is a huge deal since she normally doesn't volunteer signs, mostly she requires prompting ) And even better is that after I had her repeat our numbers twice she started being more vocal. ( More in a childish sense. Making noises and gibbering, but at least she was being vocal to some extent! ) It just made my morning with all the progress she's made since we've been working together!!

In related news, while I was sharing with the two preschool teachers about the little girls progress one of them gave me a huge compliment. She commented on how fast I'm getting at signing and how well it's coming along! I was stoked, but not as stoked as I was about all the talking and signing. Still, it's nice to hear things like that from time to time!!