Thirty Million Words is a book I just bought about a month ago. I read a Facebook post about it and it looked interesting. It is written by cochlear implant surgeon. It is an amazing book! I have only ready the first few chapters and can't wait to read more. It is not about cochlear implants, but more about how very young children learn language. It does discuss cochlear implants and I am telling many parents about this book. These are parents of not just deaf children, but also hearing children. I look back at all of the hard work that went in to making sure that Elijah would speak and have language. His articulation is still iffy on a few sounds, but overall he is an oral communicator with a huge vocabulary. Just yesterday, while helping his brother take out the trash he used the word PHOBIA. He freaked out when he saw a dead bug in the garage. His brother told him to get over it and just bring out the trash bag. I then hear Elijah yell, "I have a PHOBIA!!!" I later asked him what a phobia was and he said it was when a person is scared of something. He got most of the definition correct. He then told me he has a phobia of bugs. He then told me that arachnophobia is when you are scared of spiders. WOW! You would think I would stop being amazed by him, but he still amazes me on a daily basis. All of the hard work that we put in at the beginning of this journey has paid off. It has not been an easy journey, and it still isn't over yet, but we are definitely on the right path.
Thirty Million Words is being sold on Amazon and it is less than $20. Parents should be giving their children the gift of language....hearing or deaf, please talk to your kids. I learned to narrate my life when Elijah was in auditory-verbal therapy and I still do it to this day. It doesn't cost anything to talk to your kids!
