Wes is having an extremely good morning. He is vocalizing a ton, and not just gibberish. In this video he demonstrates for me a number of the targets from "school" that he has mastered. Most of these are known as interverbals, where you start a phrase and he must complete it. Right now, his interverbals are focused in music because he is very motivated by music. He is also having a lot of success pointing to and labeling body parts, both his and others. This morning he extended the alphabet song from "C-D" to nearly half of the other letters on his own. He also got out of his bed on his own and demanded to "go downstairs please."
I really love these new emerging skills!! It is nice that his tantrums are less about the fact that we can't understand his demands, and more about the fact that he has been told no. The tantrums and meltdowns remain the most difficult part of living with autism, however. Unlike other kids who experience tantrums, there is no one thing that will always curb or cure a tantrum. Letting him cry it out, as is the best advice we have found out there, means literally hours and hours of full on mind numbing screams every day.
The other day I watched "What is Eating Gilbert Grape" a movie with Jonny Dep and Leo from the early 90s. I was surprised by how much I related to the characters.
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