Learning to speak coherently

Ashwin's sound drills have been going on fine. He had one on Monday and then again yesterday. Ms. Vijaya goes from one exercise to the other in quick succession and Ash doesnt have much time to feel bored. He names objects from books (she notes down when he gets a sound wrong) and does a few commands, then proceeds to classify objects (like picking up vehicles alone from a set of pics), blow a whistle, and licks honey from his upper lip (to loosen his tongue).

I do the sound drills with him at home (a reminder of the days I learnt ka-kaa-kee-ku in my early Malayalam classes) and also engage in other activities - jigsaw puzzles, shape sorters, bead stringing etc.
Vijaya tells me Ash speaks well when he concentrates on what he is asking, but his pronunciation wavers when his attention drifts to other objects around. She rues the fact that we live in times when teachers want perfect kids at school. She tells me her son has grown out of his eczema problem.

Ash's atopic dermatitis has proceeded from moderately severe to very severe levels. It has had us parents run from one dr to another - on Monday, we went to a homeo doctor and got some medicines (who was trying to pinpoint the origin of his problem to a vaccination) and yesterday, we went to an Ayurveda dr, who said he can cure his condition in 6 months - provided Ash takes the kashayam he prescribed. He doesnt believe in the kashayams available in the shops as they contain chemicals. Instead the raw materials(each day's packet will be packed individually) will be couriered from Trichur and we have to make the concoction by boiling the stuff in 1000 ml water until it reduces to 300 ml. Three servings of 100 ml each for 6 months - we are hoping that Ash's general love for medicines will make him take the bitter Ayurveda syrup without resistance.

The doctor seems to specialise in massages. He looks the kind who knows his job and is confident of good results. I hope Ash's skin gets a rebirth through his hands.

p.s. the link to the doctor's website made Blogger flag this for mal ware. Reposting.

pps. We never used the ayurvedic raw material we bought as it involved cooking on a slow fire for hours. Nanny L took it home years later to prepare kashayam for herself.