Time for an update on Drew! His development over the past 6 months can be called nothing less than a transformation. I realize that I haven't really talked about his work with his speech therapist Cass, who started with him in late April. Speech therapy is such an interesting thing, and now having worked with two of them in the span of Drew's short life I can attest to the amazing things they can accomplish.
When Cass first started working with Drew, she immediately targeted play skills. Huh? At first I was pleasantly confused about what the point was, but as always, I totally trust their strategy and knowledge about what they're trying to do, and how to get there. Cass explained that speech development is closely tied with imaginary play skills and social interactions, and even had this cool chart that outlined children's ages and typically what kinds of speech they're capable of, as well as the corresponding level of play skills. Fascinating, let me tell you. Drew was just 4 at that time, and some of his speech and social skills varied widely from 24 months to 36 months. It was kind of disheartening to find that out, but we were glad he was in the right hands. :)
Here's Drew and Cass at the walk for Autism that we did earlier in the month for the NH Autism Society.
So to make a long story short, as he started to learn how to play and interact with other people during play, the communication development started to form EXACTLY as it was outlined on the chart. Incredible. She explained that many kids on the spectrum have to be directly taught how to play, even the simplest things that most kids just do naturally. It was kind of painstaking sometimes, and he kind of freaked out a little bit when introduced to the Little People and how to make them "talk" to each other and such simple things. But within a couple of weeks he amazingly was starting to have imaginary interactions with them. Before we started working with Cass I had always just kind of thought that Drew just wasn't very creative, because he never really played with things the way you'd think a 4 year old would, but as it turned out, it was the autism coming through. I just didn't know what he needed. Thank goodness for Cass and her knowledge of autism! So amazing. And now Drew carries on play scenarios with his trains and Little People and comes up with such cute things.
In the past month or so some other really interesting developments have gone on with him. First, he is now having nightmares and bad dreams and has become appropriately afraid of certain things. Which is not a happy thing, but it's great because it shows that his social/emotional development has reached a stage where he COULD have bad dreams. Even Parker, at age 2 has nightmares but Drew never did until now because his brain just wasn't wired up for it until now. He worries about the coyotes when they howl at night and is really afraid of them. It's interesting to see his fears develop because it shows a growing emotional maturity. (we show him videos on You Tube so he can see exactly what a coyote looks like when it's howling and he seems to understand that they're just dogs. He's comforted by things that he can actually see.)
Secondly, he's discovered music! When I took him to Kindermusik back when he was 7-12 months old he would cry and howl and be miserable during it. Looking back on it, and knowing what I know now about his sensitivities and sensory issues with music and sound, I realize I was torturing the poor kid. I feel terrible. But some of that has mitigated and now he enjoys music and songs, especially nowadays: The Wiggles!! Yay! We have had this Wiggles CD that we've played in the car on and off ever since he was a baby and he NEVER had any interest in it. Then all of a sudden in October he's all singing along with the songs at the top of his lungs, requesting it be turned on when we get in the car, asking for it to be turned up louder, and singing the songs on his on at home. His favorite song is Dorothy the Dinosaur, I'm sure because of the chorus of "D-O-R-O-T-H-Y!!" Letters are like crack to him (that, and gummy bears...)
We covered a lot of ground in the past 6 months with Cass, and when she recently gave him an evaluation on language use and understanding, he scored a "Normal" score for his age for the first time in his life. He's never scored as "normal" for anything up till that point. :) :)
He's really turning into such a cool little dude, and he can now ask questions, relevant questions, and understand answers and reasons. He's curious and so, so smart with an intense attention to detail. NOTHING escapes this kid. It's so great to be able to talk to him, and explain things including time sequences and have him understand. He still can't tell time obviously, but he has a firm grasp of "first, then" and even a sequence of 3-4 things to happen. Which is so great, rather than have him be constantly surprised about everything that happens.
He plays this video game called Mine Craft and you dig and build and do all kinds of things, and Drew is like a wizard at this game. He's working the mouse in his right hand, and at the same time using his left hand to punch letters on the keyboard which do certain actions, he can build structures after searching and gathering materials, managing it all across 3 different inventories, and all kinds of complicated things. It looks way too complex even for me.
And finally, he can read now. Thanks to Dave's work with him at bedtime. What first started with sight words has now turned in to full literacy. He can read his own bedtime books, ads on TV, signs in the stores, and anything else he can find. It's kind of amazing really. He loves it, so it wasn't hard to get him motivated to learn as many words as he now knows. Cass was impressed because he even reads and understands the difference between the words "now" and "know" in the same sentence. Crazy smart little dude!
So he's really come a long way and we're enjoying him. It's interesting how he was always the "difficult child" to take anywhere, and now he's really the easy one. He doesn't flip out in public anymore like he used to (usually) and has mellowed out into a little guy who just wants to go along and be curious and check things out. Christmas is going to be really fun this year. He's finally getting it! Even last year he just had no clue about what was going on. He liked it and all, but still didn't understand it. But now, he has full on understanding about Santa, and all the decorations and things that go with Christmas. It will be a lot of fun. :)
