Small steps are actually HUGE victories when progress isn’t guaranteed.
So Jonah is my Ausome 6-year-old and has never had much verbal communication.
And I’m okay with that. He’s my Ausome dude.
Don’t get me wrong, he has learned words.
After years of hard work, he has learned how to “say” some words. He has learned flash cards and learned to label things.
So He “has” a vocabulary. But usually it is not communicative.
He won’t typically verbally answer questions or make verbal observations about the things around him.
When you ask him a “yes or no” question, if the answer is “yes,” he will simply repeat your question back to you.
This is called “scripting” or “echolalia,” and is fairly common with autism.
He will repeat things he has heard (even things people have said to him) as it plays over in his head.
So today, when I heard him out of the blue say, “It’s time to take a bath…” I thought he must have been scripting a show or something.
But when I asked him, “Do you want a bath?”
He repeated “want a bath?” (Yes.)
And I gave him a bath.
Huh.
I just…
Huh.
(Give me a sec. I’m processing a bit.)
So when he told me “It’s time to take a bath,” he used his OWN words, from his OWN vocabulary to make a verbal request.
This could be huge…
I suppose he could have been simply scripting ME when I say “it’s time to take a bath” but…
I just remembered YESTERDAY, that he came up to me, a big goofy grin on his face, holding a toy “Forky” from Toy Story 4 and he said, “Look at me! I’m Forky!”
And I automatically assumed that he was “scripting” the movie.
But if that quote (word for word) is not somewhere in the movie, then not only is this spontaneous verbal communication, but it is ALSO pretend play, which is ANOTHER thing he very rarely does.
You guys.
This could be HUGE!
I’m not about to hold my breath here, but… I’m not tryin to MISS a huge milestone like this either…
12/4/19. Full sentences.
Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not.
Just had to mark it for today.