Wrangling Gerbils

If it's Wednesday, it's Aural Habilitation at WWU.  Tate is spectacular.  In fact, he's already exceeded the exercises they have in their therapy book, so they've been printing sentences and paragraphs from the New York Times and CNN's websites.  That's definitely more challenging for him, but not overwhelming.

The interesting thing, though, is that some of the sentences are so long that it's hard to tease out if he didn't catch a word or if he just forgot it by the time the sentence ended.  I mean, I'm not sure I could repeat sentences like this verbatim!

In the wake of the decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, it's hard to remember a time when there was such a fixation on a single justice's single vote.

or

After withdrawing all visible security forces, even traffic police, for a day, Syrian Army troops brought in on trucks or buses suddenly deployed around the 13th-century citadel.

or

Ringed by the Blue Ridge Mountains and for generations a successful rail hub, Roanoke now has a median income of about $35,000 and is trying to reinvent itself for a different economy: a medical school opened in 2010, and a bike shop is planning to move into the massive old transportation museum.

But he tries hard.  And often he gets the gist of it, even if he misses/forgets some of the words.  And he can laugh at himself, which is a blessing beyond belief.

After listening to one long sentence, he started to say it back, then asked for a repeat, saying something to the effect,

That's a lot of words and I don't remember the ones from back at the beginning.  It's like trying to control a bunch of gerbils.  When I grab this bunch, that bunch starts to skitter away.

Yes, Tate, that's what it's like.  Well said.