Conversations

Tammy now types out imaginary conversations instead of writing her diary. Conversations challenge her to formulate questions and to use present, future and past tenses, wherease "diary"only required "telling sentences"and the past tense.
Before she writes out her conversation, we orally practise conversations she could have - from imaginary dates with Nick Jonas till possible ones like telling her brother about antioxidants!
I am quite excited about her progress in this regard. She still struggles, but boy, has she come a long way!!
Now the biggest hurdle is to get her not to be too shy to speak to real people. On Friday I told her that the gym coach would like some feedback from us, and I suggested she tell her which exercises she likes and which ones she doesn't like so much. So we practised a possible conversation on our way to the gym:
"Gill, I really enjoy water aerobics. I like the floating exercises a lot, but I do not really like the kicking exercises. Thank you so much for helping me." (Gill is the first and only instructor to really pay individual attention to each of us, including Tammy.)
And on Friday, Gill really paid a lot of extra attention to Tammy, showing her how to improve and giving her positive feedback whenever she succeeded. At the end of the lesson she said to me that Tammy had really improved. It was the opportune moment for Tamerin's conversation with Gill, so I urged Tammy to speak to Gill and then moved away. It was to be between her and Gill.... On her way out Gill said to me that she thought she had understood Tammy....

Praise the Lord that Tamerin finally got the courage to say something more than "Hello" to a "stranger". Please pray that her tongue will be unleashed much more, so that she can be free to communicate. How frustrating to have to "practice" such simple conversations! But how thrilling for her to slowly (finally) overcome her inability to speak coherently and to "wow" herself by being able to express herself and answer questions - no matter how simple the topic.