It's nice to be advanced at something...

"higher level thinking/talking/listening"

This is a note that our speech therapist made during our therapy session this week. People are always telling me that Noah is "so smart" or "so happy" and I typically ignore it. I mean, those are nice intangible comments that people make so that moms don't feel bad about their disabled kiddo.
"Sure he can't walk very well, but he's so smart" or
"I know he can't eat, but at least he's happy".
Higher level thinking/talking/listening is a bit more specific, though. During our session she commented that she is able to use more advanced language with him than with all of her other therapy kids of a similar age and that his auditory comprehension is amazing. I always get comments that he's doing well with the implant, but I guess I didn't realize he was doing THAT well. It's hard to believe that less than a year ago we would spend an entire session teaching Noah to notice the presence and absence of sounds.
"I hear that bell ringing!" "The bell stopped."
Now we have whole conversations with Noah.
"Put the farmer in the tractor, Noah."
"No. Pig tractor." (puts the pig in the tractor) "Vroom."
"Pigs can't drive tractors!"
"Ok. Horse." (removes the pig and puts the horse in the tractor, giggling because he knows that horses can't drive tractors either)
At home we're working on following two and three step directions and he really hasn't been doing well with it. Our therapist seems to think that he gets it but is just "being 2". I do agree with that to a point - he much prefers to do the opposite of what is asked (hence the pig & cow driving the tractor). I'm still going to keep working on it, though. I'd hate to find out she was wrong a year from now.