Outside Observations

Todays blog is brought to you courtesy of a facebook conversation I had yesterday with a friend who had been over with her family briefly on Sunday to see my garden, and got to see Dominic for the first time probably in close to a year.

These are some of her observations about Dominic, and my responses.   Its always nice to have a different set of eyes see the differences too.  Her son is a year and a half or so older than Dominic.  They are physically the same size.

“I was noticing a certain amount of "high-chair" science, as it's termed, like dropping his toy car and seeing what forces act on it.”

I’m not sure that’s actually the case, I think he’s more visually stimming on the motion of the car moving.  

“Dominic IS using a lot more words and seems more inclined to use them, but it still has the scripted feel. Something I noticed, and I haven't even a clue about, since    never did this... Dominic seems to vary his voice, a lot…. Not sure if he's just experimenting with sound in a way that never really occurred to because he's so visual. “

Scripting and Echolalia are still issues for us and they seem to go in phases. Right now, we’re having a phase.  Even with the Echoilalia, he doesn’t do more than 4 words in a row, so his scripting and echolalia are different than other kids who rattle off whole long phrases they’ve heard but are otherwise non verbal.   I didn’t know all kids didn’t vary their voice… that’s an interesting observation. I think he just likes hearing the variety of sound. The hardest stim’s we have yet to get rid are the sounds… the squeals and the growls.

“Don't think we saw much in the way of biting or spitting type stims. He's still stimming but can't quite put my finger on what that was.”

Actually, I didn’t see any while they were there, but the little stuff, I don’t see anymore because its our normal.

“Holy mackerels, that kid is going to be tall”

He really is.

“Yes, I can see the progress, even if there's such a long way to go.  And one last thing... for a few minutes, he actually wanted to interact. Then I think maybe    overwhelmed him a bit.  I think maybe Dominic is coming into the world a little bit.”

And given that he’s met her child only a handful of times and they weren’t over long enough for him to relax (usually in a social setting, even with kids he knows, it takes an hour or so of parallel before he interacts)  that’s a pretty positive statement.