Warning: This post has a lot of details about J's new skills, so it's mostly for me to remember his progress, and for friends or family who really want to keep up with how he's doing. Feel free to skim through it, or just watch the video at the end to see some of his new skills in action!
I’m amazed at how quickly J is picking up new skills, even without much formal therapy yet. He is getting speech therapy twice a week already, and his language skills are improving by leaps and bounds. At 18 months, J’s language skills were right on target. Somewhere between 19 and 23 months, he began to lose skills dramatically. When we had him evaluated at 23 months, his language skills were in the 11-14 month range, so a significant drop from where he had been. Over the past 2 months, we’ve been working with him the best we can, and he started speech therapy about a month ago. Since then, his skills have skyrocketed. At this point he’s definitely back to where he was at 18 months, and possibly a little further. He’s learning new words every day, and he is almost at the point of combining two words. The other day, as we were leaving home to pick CB up from school, J said “Bye home!” And when the speech therapist was putting away her toys last week (which included a dog that jumps and does tricks), J said “Bye dog!” I know that doesn’t seem like much to brag about for a 2-year old, since most 18 month olds can do that. But the thing is, my kid couldn’t do it, and he should have been able to. But now he can! So we’re celebrating this small step, and we’re excited to see how it leads to more small steps.
I’m amazed at how quickly J is picking up new skills, even without much formal therapy yet. He is getting speech therapy twice a week already, and his language skills are improving by leaps and bounds. At 18 months, J’s language skills were right on target. Somewhere between 19 and 23 months, he began to lose skills dramatically. When we had him evaluated at 23 months, his language skills were in the 11-14 month range, so a significant drop from where he had been. Over the past 2 months, we’ve been working with him the best we can, and he started speech therapy about a month ago. Since then, his skills have skyrocketed. At this point he’s definitely back to where he was at 18 months, and possibly a little further. He’s learning new words every day, and he is almost at the point of combining two words. The other day, as we were leaving home to pick CB up from school, J said “Bye home!” And when the speech therapist was putting away her toys last week (which included a dog that jumps and does tricks), J said “Bye dog!” I know that doesn’t seem like much to brag about for a 2-year old, since most 18 month olds can do that. But the thing is, my kid couldn’t do it, and he should have been able to. But now he can! So we’re celebrating this small step, and we’re excited to see how it leads to more small steps.
I think his speech will continue to improve quickly, and before long I would guess that he will no longer qualify for a speech delay. But the speech therapist has made us aware of the difference between a speech delay and a communication disorder. Even though J is learning new words and catching up in his speech skills, he still has some disordered communication. Much of that also involves disordered social skills. For example, until recently when he wanted me to do something, like blow bubbles, he would bring the object to me and drop it in my lap or shove it in to my legs, without looking at me, addressing me, or making eye contact. We worked with him until he learned to say “more.” That should have been something he learned on his own, but he didn’t. But with just a little bit of training, he learned to sign and say “more” when he was ready for more bubbles. That was the first step. The speech therapist taught me next how to use the expectant pause, which made J take the first step in initiating social contact. So after he would say “more,” I would wait quietly, and eventually he would look at my eyes, then say “more” again. Once he mastered that skill (eye contact), we stepped up the expectation. Now when he wants me to blow more bubbles, he says “more,” looks me in the eye, then says “Ready, set, go!” I wait and won’t blow the bubbles until he’s given me sufficient eye contact. That way we’re teaching him the social component of communication – that it’s not all about the object, but about the person you’re interacting with. It seems like such a small thing, especially for a 2-year old. But it can develop in to a much larger social/communication problem later in life. Right now, however, he can still be easily taught these skills before they become habits and develop in to bigger problems.
Here are a few of the other new skills he’s picking up:
Addressing the person he’s talking to: We’re teaching him how to say someone’s name when he’s trying to get their attention, instead of just yelling or dropping objects in our lap. So when he wants help with a toy, he says “Help” over and over. I repeat “Mama, help. Mama, help.” Just this weekend for the first time he said “Dada, help” to Chris. And yesterday he brought me a toy from the playroom, the whole time repeating “Mama, help. Mama, help.” I even heard him calling out “Mama” yesterday when he found the gate to the stairs open and wanted me to come upstairs with him. He had never called for me before using my name (he usually just yells and babbles). Again, this seems like a small thing, but it’s actually huge. It’s reinforcing the role of relationships and communication with an actual person. That’s an important social skill!
Pretend play: He’s still not super imaginative and in to pretend play, but he’s picking up on it a little bit. He will feed his little toy Dora or Elmo some Cheerios, or give them a drink from a cup. He’ll push them down his toy slide and say “Wheeee!” He’ll put Elmo on the bus and say “Bye!” He’ll roll a car and say “Vroom, vroom!” And he’s started picking up any object that looks even remotely like an airplane, flying it through the air, and saying “Airplane! Vrooooom!” He also loves to hug stuffed animals or even pictures of animals in a book. He pets them and pretends to “talk” to them in animal language, barking like a dog or meowing like a cat. He’s making great progress in the area of imaginative play, even though it hasn’t come naturally to him.
He’s also surprising us with how much he actually knows that we just didn’t realize since he wasn’t talking much. For example, he knows quite a few of his letters. We just didn’t know it because he never said them. But suddenly he has started pointing at a letter and saying “E!” or “O!” or “B!” We didn’t even know he knew those! He’s started counting to 3. And now he can make almost all the animal sounds. It was so strange to have a child who wouldn’t make animal sounds, but in just a couple weeks he’s gone from only making the dog and lion sounds to making almost all the animal sounds – cow, monkey, pig, horse, duck, sheep, lion, etc. He’s picked them up really quickly. I think he probably knew them before, but just wasn’t saying them. As his speech skills have picked up, he’s showing us all kinds of things that he actually knew in his brain but wouldn’t say before.
He’s doing great with puzzles and shape sorter toys. He had never shown any interest before in his shape sorter. Then about a week and a half ago he decided to give it a try. Within a few days he could do the whole thing by himself. He picks up a shape, says “Circle” or “Star” or something not quite intelligible that sounds remotely like “Triangle.” Then he looks for the right hole to put it in. If he can’t find it, he says “Turn it around,” then turns the shape sorter till he finds the right side and puts the shape in the hole. No problem. And he’s great at matching objects. If he sees a picture in a book that is also on the cover or the back of the book, he turns the book over till he finds the matching picture, then points to it. He has a great memory for where things are, and he has very good matching and sorting skills. There is a lot going on in that brain of his – he just hasn’t known how to communicate it before now.
There are still many skills we need to work on. He loves to flip through books and has started pointing to pictures in the book (with his index finger!) and naming them, which is great. But he still will rarely do it on command. He doesn't follow commands well at all, even when it's something that we know he can do. And we still have difficulty diverting his attention...getting him to follow our point or gaze. And of course there are still the repetitive, self-stimulatory behaviors, as well as some socially inappropriate behaviors around strangers or anyone outside his family. But that's what all this therapy is for! He has improved so much already, especially in his communication skills. We're really hopeful that once we get some behavior therapy in place, those skills will improve just as quickly. Through it all, he really is just about the sweetest baby in the world. He's so snuggly and affectionate, and he has such an easy-going, laid back temperament. It sounds crazy since he needs so much therapy and intervention, but he is by far my easiest child (so far...)!
There are still many skills we need to work on. He loves to flip through books and has started pointing to pictures in the book (with his index finger!) and naming them, which is great. But he still will rarely do it on command. He doesn't follow commands well at all, even when it's something that we know he can do. And we still have difficulty diverting his attention...getting him to follow our point or gaze. And of course there are still the repetitive, self-stimulatory behaviors, as well as some socially inappropriate behaviors around strangers or anyone outside his family. But that's what all this therapy is for! He has improved so much already, especially in his communication skills. We're really hopeful that once we get some behavior therapy in place, those skills will improve just as quickly. Through it all, he really is just about the sweetest baby in the world. He's so snuggly and affectionate, and he has such an easy-going, laid back temperament. It sounds crazy since he needs so much therapy and intervention, but he is by far my easiest child (so far...)!
Here he is this morning at breakfast about to feed Dora some Cheerios:
He thought it was so funny when Dora said "Mmmmmm, yum!" He cracked himself up!
Here's a video of him showing off some of his new skills. He makes great eye contact, and says "Ready, Set, Go!" which is about the cutest thing ever. I think it's common for people to imagine a child with autism (or suspected autism) as being completely anti-social and non-communicative, but J is actually very socially engaged and lots of fun. If you didn't know what was going on and didn't look closely, you probably would never suspect there was a problem. Plus he's just super darn cute!
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