Baby Steps

When Shaun started speech back at the end of August/beginning of September, he had three phrases he used consistently (other than his movie scenes and songs)- "3 2 1 Blast Off" and "Thank You Welcome" when he wanted you to help him do something, wanted more of something and so on, and "Bye bye", which he did use appropriately. There were other words he would on occasion use on his own, but never consistently. After starting speech, he had started repeating a few more words in class- repeating what was said, or finishing the phrase, but there was little carryover at home. As the weeks have passed we have seen slow progress on this: he will repeat things at home, though still not like he would in class. But a few weeks back he started pointing! Not to anything in particular, but its a step. This is something we are working on with him in ABA and I know he will get there. Also within the last week or so he has started signing 'more'!! He has only done it 4-5 times, and still uses 'blast off' for most everything, but as the title says: baby steps. During ABA he repeated both 'duck' and 'car', and on his own he has started saying 'choo choo' more! (And he LOVES his choo choos!) Today he reached for an antique toy car where we were having lunch and said 'car'...all on his own!!! I was so proud. So to sum up this jumble of words here, haha...we're seeing progress. It's slow, but it's there and I know he will only continue to go uphill from here!

I know to some this might seem very simple for a 27 month old, and it's true that most probably do have all these things down...actually, Shaun knew most of these words long ago and lost them somewhere along the way. But as I think most other mommies who have a child with autism...or any other developmental or speech delays, those little things mean everything!!!