AutismWeb Forum

Hi everyone! Anyone have any updates?
My son is using longer sentences and more words. He was in the tub this morning and he said "look I have 2 washclothes and they are swimming in the water and they are all wet" He also said yesterday that daddy went to work to buy some money - I tried to tell him it's "earn" some money but he insists he is buying money. My husband works nights. When he came home this morning both of my kids asked him if he brought home some money. We are still working on potty training - ugh

lulubelle - That's awesome language!

At our most recent monthly school team meeting, the teacher said that at the beginning of the school year she had been keeping track of all the comments and sentences my daughter says in the course of a day, but now she says so many things that it's really difficult to write them all down. A year ago, her language was quite echolalic but now it's pretty much spontaneous and original. The speech therapist said she's very happy with the progress and she's gone from echoalia to something she called verbal rehearsing. It's a stage where children make external comments that will later in their development be internal. "Mommy, daddy, and I are at the park and I see a dog over there." Typical kids this age have already gone through this stage, but it's exciting my child is at that stage because it's a normal development in speech.
The teacher also remarked that in general my daughter is a happy, easy going child who isn't bothered by a lot. Her need for sameness is not great or rigid. She can handle differences in situations pretty easily now. I've noticed that too.

Dani! Great news!!! It's great that she is so easy going. My son likes his routines but it is getting better. He has a lot of anxiety - I am trying to figure out what will help with that.

A couple of "wows" for us in the past two weeks.
Last week, my son was playing a game on the puter and his dad and I were sitting on the couch. All of a sudden we heard this "squeak" sound come from him. Without hesitation, he turned to us and said, "Sorry. Sometimes I do that when I get excited." Usually, he is in his own world when he's on the puter, so he wouldn't even realize we might have heard his noises.

Yesterday, a friend of his came over and brought his cousin with him. My son answered the door. His friend told him this was his cousin and my son stuck out his hand and said "Nice to meet you." It blew me away!

I'm so grateful...
dory

Accomplishments my son has made thus far is that he is totally potty trained since Summer 2009 at the age of 4 1/2 years old. He is more attentive and follows verbal commands well. He gratuated from private OT, which I feel that he still can benefit of having more therapy. He is now in a transisitonal ppcd class with regular ed students. There are still much more that he needs to accomplished, but am blessed to be able to share what he has accomplished. Praise God!

S. has begun start conversations with comments. "There is a new movie out, Mom......."
"Oh, really?"
"It's called 'the Spy Next door". It looks cool." A long pause follows. "I saw the commercial at Anna's house."
"Hmm."
"It's got that guy from the movie you like. It's funny. You'd like it, Mom."
"S., do you want to see the movie?"
"Can we? Can we bring Jack or Mathew? Can we go tonight?"

I love how tries to sell DH and I on certain movies, books, and
games by dropping hints. He recently asked to join Club Penguin because everyone at his after school program goes on it and he wants to keep up with crowd. He constantly bringing things to our attention. He wants to show us a cool scene from a movie or show me a new website about something we are both interested in.

Also for a kid who did not ask a why question until he was six, he making up for it. Most recently he ask me, "Why if basking sharks eat sea turtles and sea turtles eat jelly fish, why can't the basking sharks just eat the jelly fish?" When I didn't have an answer, he asked if we could google it?

We're getting really good spontaneous eye contact. I think it's the mHBOT sessions because we're not working on eye contact on any of her programs. She's also spontaneously greeting classmates at preschool although she has a tendency to call her teacher by her first name. We have to work on that issue.

She's answering questions with a "yes" or "no" nearly 90% of the time now. Before, if I asked if she wanted to do something or wanted something, she would say "I want......" or "I don't want....". Now, she'll say "No, I don't want the Clifford DVD. I want the Sesame Street DVD." It's a little thing because we could tell if she wanted to do something or not before, but it's nice to have her use "yes" and "no" consistently.

We took her to a park in town today. She behaved like a typical child. And when it was time to leave and give her swing to another child, she left without a fuss.

Dani - How old is your daughter? It sounds like she is doing great!
My son has been talking more, longer sentences. He still does scripting and has echolalia - any tips on how to reduce this would be greatly appreciated. My son, daughter and husband were playing on the computer and my daughter turned the computer off. My son looks at her and says - hey don't touch the button Jilly Bean (my daughter). He also told her she was not being very nice the other day.
I know sometimes this is too much information but.....we have been working for forever on potty training (for poop) - anyhow - he has gone twice this week on the potty. I am hoping we are turning a corner on this. It will be so awesome if he can get that down. I will be really excited. You guys are probably sick of me talking about it - but once he gets it I will throw a party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our OT for the last two weeks has told us how great he is doing. We still have a lot to work on but he is making progress and that's all that matters!

lulubelle - She's 4.5 years old.

We're still dealing with some scripting although I think she's now slowly becoming more aware of when she does it.

It's great he's making so much progress. Don't worry about the poop issue. I read ASD blogs in my spare time. One of the blogs I follow has a boy that wasn't poop trained back when the blog started (age 5). Now he's 9 years old. Not only is he fully toilet trained but his doctor recently removed his autism diagnosis. This after several years of various interventions including lots of sensory integration and RDI.

hi everybody! i've never posted to this thread before, but another member has been encouraging me to all of the accomplishments here are wonderful and i have really enjoyed reading them. i tend to get stuck in just the biomed forum and forget there are so many other great places here

our boy is 4.5 years. he was nonverbal up until this past june when we started aggressive gut treatment (steroids, pentasa, etc.) - he said his first words within ten days. two weeks after that he started at a really great ABA school and he has made decent, steady progress ever since.

anyway, i wanted to share that on friday he said his first ever three word sentence "more please shake"! he has just begun to put two words together (like in the past month and not consistently) and we were thrilled. he still doesn't have a lot of spontaneous speech yet, so, i was especially blown away by the unpromted three word phrase

i look forward to reading more posts to this thread.

Fuzzyone,
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome... I hope you continue to see and hear great things...

Stacy

Fuzzy- That's awesome!

Thanks Moderator Bill for pinning this thread at the top of the forum.

I posted this on the other part of this forum as well but I wanted to add it here too! I am just so excited today.

Here is a note we received today from the ST at my son's school:

"He is having some great days lately. We have been using many pictures to chart on the schedule for the day. He is much more interactive with me and other children and it seems knowing what to expect helps. We use numbers to tell him when things will happen. He is initiating with me and peers! And he is spontaneously commenting and answering questions. Great progress over the past month even with all of the days off."

I just had to post this. Over the weekend I was feeling pretty down. This is just what I needed.

Oh - and another thing - HE TOLD ME HE HAD TO GO POOP TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Potty trained for this only in the past month.

We are in the northeast and it has been snowy and cold. The snow finally melted off of our driveway today and he wanted to ride his bike - he went all the way down the driveway right into a big mud puddle and got mud and water splashed all over him. Last year he would have had a meltdown and asked immediately to change out of his dirty clothes. He laughed and laughed - told me his pants were all wet - but then grabbed his bike and did it again.

Ok sorry - I probably seem like I am bragging - well I guess I am .......but I know you guys here can appreciate this stuff. I know I like hearing good news/stories.

Something has been working lately. I hope it continues!

Brag away, Lulabelle - that's great progress!

We've had a yeast flare around here for over 3 wks, but he came out of it two days ago and has been just amazing ever since. Not only did he SLEEP last night, but he's been asking questions for two days straight. It's mostly just can I have and where questions, but last night he even asked, "Hey Mommy, Daddy be home soon?" Yay!

The latest thing is for my daughter to ask me to join her when she pretends to be inside something..I'm not sure if it's a train or a tent. She doesn't seem sure either. Sometimes it's a train. Sometimes she says it's a tent. . She puts a blanket overself, sometimes it's a bedsheet, and we sit together. It's stuffy in there and I really don't want to do it because I would rather breathe fresh air but remembering how she was about a year or more ago when she didn't ask me to do anything with her, I'm more than willing to join her.
"Come here, mommy. Come here. Let's do it together."

This is not something I'd usually be proud of, S. called another kid a "jerk". An older kid (11 or 12) in our neighbor hood was teasing him and some of the other younger kids (ages 5 to . Normally, he's nice enough kid, but he was being mean. So he called S. a baby because he can't ride his scooter without a helmet. S. called him a "jerk" and kept on playing with his friends.
A year ago, S. would have cried or screamed at him or come home in tears and worried about it for days. He actually stood up for himself without overreacting. How weird this journey is........

Janie, Dani, Liz - Great updates!!!!! Love them all!!! I shouldn't say this but Liz77 - I love that he called him a jerk!! You go S!!!!!!!!
Anyhow, I have had a lot of ups and downs lately but this morning has been great. My son took my daughters doll (yes he is playing with dolls and I am sure his father wishes it was something else - LOL) and told me he had to feed her. Got the toy baby bottle and fed her, held her, rocked her, gave her a binky and then said he had to put her to bed. He did this for quite a long time this morning. LOVE IT!!!!! He has been using a lot more words lately. He still has a bit of anxiety which I am trying to work through. Oh yeah and he has been pooping on the potty for about 2 months now and I could not be more excited. Keep the great news coming - everyone's stories keep me going! Bless you all! I hope all of your children are doing great!

Just in the past month my son has done so many new things and I want the whole world to know about it He has always been a slow responder, making good gains over the last 3 years of biomed since his diagnosis...but this past month has been absolutely remarkable for us....it's as if I'm celebrating his birth day every day as I'm FINALLY getting bits and pieces of my son back.....I am finding him in there and and thrilled with his progress - in just ONE month!!!

His imaginatory play is FINALLY starting to come....he will actually play for short periods of time appropriately with his Little People.or stuffed animals "Max & Ruby"...do you know how many hours I've tried to get him to play with these things in the past with no imatition or interest? He's finally got some interest!!! His imitation skills are flooding this house....he's modeling his sisters and peers at school in all sorts of ways....he wants to be like them I think

He is now answering "what?" when you call his name................do you know how many times in the past I could hollar out his name and get no response whatsoever???? He's also answering "what?" when you say to him, "Cooper guess what?"

He's independently saying, "Momma, watch me....or Look at me Daddy..." when he does a somersault or something else that he's proud of....

He's shared his first joint attention with my husband as of the other day, "Come here Daddy, I show you something...." Never ever has he had shared-joint-attention OR has he come get someone to take them somewhere to show off a toy...!

He asked his first "What" question 2 days ago....and continues to ask "what" in all sorts of appropriate contextes......"what is Grandma doing?" "What is the girl doing Mommy?" His inquisition of the world around him - IN OUR WORLD....is developing! He's so much aware of his surroundings and becoming more aware of the world we share in oppose to the world he shares only with himself b/c of his Autism.

He is using the word "where" with longer sentences, "Where is Daddy going?" "Where are the Power Rangers?" And answering, "I am not sure," if I ask him where something is that he does not know...

He's inviting us and his peers to "Come play with me..."

He's trying so hard to initiate conversation.....he will get the greeting and ending right but fill the sentence in with purposful babbling or scripting. Our speech therapist tells us that he's showing great signs of wanting to converse back and forth....moving forward from just sentences to actual conversation....and he is practicing with what he knows how...Our SLP fully believes that his spontaneous conversation is right around the corner.....it's SO close to being there and I'm getting greedy for more! He has a ton of language, the conversation piece is just lagging....but I'm starting to feel we'll get there by golly!!!

He's coming home from school and giving me bits and pieces of his day..."Go to the zoo with Skyler...." or "play in sandbox with Colton..." or "play catch with Ian..." He's sharing parts of his day with me and I'm loving every second of it!

It's like he's just overall making so many more connections than before. His fog is lifting quickly and altho he's still very effected by his Autism...he is doing things I never believed he'd be doing....

and one last thing...he's initiating playing "Simon Says" with us! I never thought we'd see the day!

THANK YOU GOD FOR HOPE!!!!

MYBUDDY12!!!!!
That is so awesome!!!!!!!!
Have you done anything new? What do you attribute this to?? It's wonderful news!! I love hearing stuff like this!!!! How old is he?

MYBUDDY12!!!!!
Wow, wow, wow!