Today Jonah and I were sitting together on the bed, facing each other. I've been doing a set of nursery rhymes with him a few times a day and we usually do them on the bed...this allows me to toss him all about on the big fluffy pillows which he loves.
One of the rhymes we do is 'Row, row, row your boat' where I sit oposite him, hold his hands and push him back and forth while we 'row' then I shake his arms up and down quite vigorously during the 'merrily merrily' parts. He loves this so much.
Today we were playing on the bed and I sat him oposite me but before I could indicate what we were going to do he grabbed both of my hands, looked at me and smiled, then after a slight pause he started rocking back and forth, smiling. He was playing Row your boat and he initiated it!
It's such an awesome achievement and it means he has learned that we are interactive, that we can do things for him and that he can expect things from us. I was so excited I think I got a bit carried away. We sung it about ten times lol
Jonah also has a Fisher Price aquarium. It's a little plastic fish tank that lights up and plays bubble sounds and music when you rock it or drop on of the three plastic fish who call it home into it. I bought it to teach him to post things as up until now all he was doing was removing things out of places but not putting anything in.
He loves the aquarium because it lights up and flashes and today I actually saw him putting the fish in to the tank. I sat with him and said 'Fish in', 'Put fish in,' and he smiled at me and did exactly that. After a while he decided to test his slam dunk skills and launch the fish at the aquarium from a distance and I must say, his aim was pretty good LOL.
He is learning. I know we have a hell of a long way to go but this is the blessing of getting this so early, these months of waiting are not waisted. Usually at this age with autism you're in a holding pattern, specialists are telling you to 'wait and see' well meaning friends and family are telling you that such and such's boy didn't speak until he was 5 and he is perfectly fine and you're not accessing services because you don't have a diagnosis, only rapidly fading hope.
This is why, amongst all of this heartache we still have hope. Jonah is so young, these months spent working with him and teaching him are laying a strong foundation that so many miss out on.
Yes, we have a long hard road ahead of us but we're slowly but surely smoothing the way to get there.
Way to go Jonah. I'm beaming after reading this. Well done Donna.
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