Thursday Update: Continued Improvement

I just got back from visiting Jon, and his improvement has really been impressive. He was more talkative than he had been. These past couple of weeks, most of his talking was in response to questions people asked. This time he was talking more without having to be asked first.

He's not using his full range of vocabulary yet. He uses a lot of verbal placeholders, like "that thing," "so-and-so," and "whatchamacallit." And he tends to talk in generalities (i.e. "Amy and I have to take care of business at the house") without mentioning details.

After grabbing a small whiteboard/marker/eraser set that Amy had brought to the room, we started playing "Name that Name." I would write down the name of someone Jon knows and quiz him on who that person was.

Having worked for several years at the company where Jon is currently employed, I have the advantage of knowing many of the people he works with. So we started off with names of coworkers, and Jon would describe what that person did at the company. For the first dozen or so names, he scored 100%.

Trying to make it a little more challenging, I wrote down a few names of people who had worked there for many years, but don't work there presently. He got those correct too, except for one, which he eventually got after a couple of clues.

Jon's brother-in-law, who walked in mid-way through the round, suggested that we write names of famous musicians. Remembering names from Jon's iPod, I wrote "Nino Rota." After a moment's pause, Jon identified him as the musician who scored films for "that director" (he didn't mention Fellini by name). He even correctly noted that Nino Rota wrote music for the Godfather .

Next was "Ennio Morricone," who Jon successfully identified as the one who did music for westerns in the '50s and '60s. He even specifically mentioned the film A Fistful of Dollars.

When Jon saw "Bernard Herrmann," he immediately identified the genre, adding that Bernard Hermann wrote music for films by "that British director." He couldn't remember the name of that British director immediately, but after hearing the first name ("Alfred") and the first letter of the last name ("H"), he correctly said "Hitchcock."

It was really impressive seeing Jon dig for, and then find those memories. It definitely leaves me with the assurance that, with time, Jon will fully overcome his memory lapse.

So if you visit, please grab that whiteboard and continue helping Jon remember.