praying, counting, books, laughing, interactive, imaginary play

Isaac has been making improvemetns lately and I've wanted to capture some of them so that at some future point we can turn back on learn what he's done.

Isaac has been able to follow along in prayer and anticipate what would come next. He has improved his ability to speak more clearly and it's not only been noticeable in prayer, but in everyday conversation. Along with that, eye contact has improved as he's talking with/at you.

He got a tadpole book for Christmas from Georgette Siparsky. This book has tadpoles that start at 10 and go to 1 and at the end of the book, the tadpoles turn into frogs. Isaac will follow along and attempt to count with the adult reader. This is the first time he's expressed interest in counting; what's even more exciting is that it's in a book.

Speaking of books, he is now willing to read books for a short period of time. He will sit down in the living room on his belly and turn pages. His favorite book is a dog book where he has to locate the doggy/puppy in each picture. He has expressed a lot of interest in this book each night and asks if he can take it to bed (we, of course, say no as he has a bad track record of destroying books). Perhaps, in the future, he'll be able to read them by himself, overnight. There is still occasional stimming, but as he focuses more on the book, that has subsided.

Just this week, the last week of 2009, he has started laughing, laughing more how you might expect a normal kid to laugh. This is interesting to us because we've not seen it in him before. It is one way where he seems to be "waking up", for lack of a better term. We continue to look for ways that he might break out of his sleep, and this has been one area.

He also has been more interactive with the kids. We took him to Costco and he was able to follow orders to stay with us. We would "ready set go" down different isles and he was willing to stay right with us and follow Dad or Blake when we'd say "turn around" or "come this way". Before, we NEVER could let him freely walk. This is a new development.

He also is much more willing to have imaginary play. He'll have "bob", his spinny toy, talk with the teddy bear. This is important because he was lacking that typical child play behavior. He's still lacking large parts of it, but seems to be starting. It's a start.

Struggles -

He still struggles immensely when following adult demands. For example, at nursery, he is told to sit down and he immediately starts spinning around, searching for some sensory input. This is extremely disruptive to the class. Perhaps it would help to have a picture schedule to work with.

He also seems to continue struggling with diarrhea which brings on immense pain. From our observations, stimming seems to increase after these terribly difficult diaper experiences. Our working theory is that his gastro challenges have been a large contributor to his current sensory seeking.