It Takes Two to Talk - The Hanen Program

A few weeks ago, I got a letter inviting us to enrol in a communication program called It Takes Two to Talk, developed by The Hanen Centre in Canada. It has been run since 1975 and is evolving continually. The program is not only for children with as severe issues as Nico but gets success across all bands of language delay.

Obviously for Nico, it will not mean that we have him talking in the 16 weeks the course runs for. We are looking at the broader meaning of communication for him: getting a message across.

At the moment we have the absolute basics of showing emotion from him; smiles, laughing, crying/ screaming and moving his head away from a bottle/spoon. He also makes good eye contact and will follow or look for but at this stage, I can't read any message in this. I know he understands a lot of words but I am not the best at gauging understanding as I don't give enough credit. I know that if I say anything containing the words "Brooklyn" "Mama" "Dada" "Cat" (or Veuve and Remy, our cats names) he will find them and smile. I am not sure about any more than that, except maybe a few other peoples names.

Today was our first day and it was just a basic orientation and meeting the other parents. Nico was cared for in another room by a family worker. I thought he would be the worker looking after all the other children from the program but was pleasantly surprised that it was a mainstream playgroup and the family worker was there just for him and the other kids had their mums. He was happy and giving lots of smiles.

We haven't set goals yet but I think I know what Nico's will be for this year. I imagine it will be to give him an understanding that what he does can get him something. For example, if he looks at an object, then at us, then at the object again, he will get what he was looking at. Ultimately a yes or no would be great too. It may not be a full nod or shake, but a single 'chin down' for yes and side to side for no could be a realistic expectation.

I am hoping one day in the not too distant future, he will have enough limb/ body control to get some more signs and the concept of words has not been ruled out either. Just not too soon. We have to live by the "hope for the best, expect the worst"  motto, or in our case perhaps "Hope for the most, expect the least"