So our Chewy Tubes came today! Yay Amazon! I got a pack of four different ones for Bug to try out. He of course put them into his mouth right away. Started with the green textured one and tried out each one as he jumped around and watched Thomas on Netflix. (I love Netflix. Why did we wait so long to get it!). We will have to see if he gravitates toward a certain one or not.
As I mentioned in the first post on here, one of the things I'm trying to do more is sing little songs to Bug. He really enjoys it, and if we can work in actions, hopefully he'll start participating more. This afternoon I was singing the ABCs to him and every so often I'd stop, to see if he'd fill in a letter. I've tried this a few times, and he knew a couple, but today, he said 8-10 letters!
That's the funny thing about him. He knows so much. He remembers things so well, I'm constantly amazed. You can be reading a book and stop before the last few words, and he can tell you what the words are and usually how the next sentence begins. He knows when to turn the pages in his books. But if you ask him something point blank, he usually won't answer. "Can you count to ten" would be met with silence but if you start out "One," he'll say "Two" then you say "Two" and he'll say "three" and so on. He does get very caught up into routines. Once he figures out how to do something, he'll typically always do it that way. Even if we're at a playground, he'll make his way up the steps to the slide, stop to turn a steering wheel, then go down the slide and then repeat the same sequence over.
It's difficult for me because I wonder how much of his behavior is based off of that idea, that once you have some success, you just keep repeating that same thing. Did we somehow "teach" him not to talk, obviously unintentionally? I know that's an oversimplification of the issue, that his extreme need for routine is a symptom of the issue--whatever that is. But it's difficult to figure out how to help him successfully break out of those routines.
I also wanted to talk a bit about our pediatrician's thoughts. We went in on Friday (just Bug and me, because doctor appointments do not go well) for Bug's 2.5 yr well-child check up. Our pediatrician, Dr. Marks was the one who encouraged me to have Bug assessed by Early Intervention, and as we've been going in often for Wiggle's well-baby checks, he's seen us a good amount so he kind of knows how Bug is. Dr. Marks' thought is to do the 6 months of speech and occupational and then we'll see how far Bug has come and whether there's a more serious issue than a speech delay. While it is possible that Bug lies somewhere on the autism spectrum (high functioning, of course) he does have a lot of characteristics and skills that don't typically fit ASD. So it could be that with a little bit of therapy, we can get our "late-bloomer" caught up.
It's funny, because in some ways, it seems so important to FIGURE OUT IF HE HAS SOMETHING, and yet somehow it doesn't really matter. If we knew he had ASD or SPD (sensory processing disorder), he would still be in the therapies he's in. We'd still have to decide what the best course is for after he leaves the Early Intervention program (Early Childhood, private therapy, etc.). He'll be our Bug no matter what happens, and we'll advocate for him and encourage him all the same.
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