Despite his hit-or-miss usage in the house I’m so grateful he has any means with which to convey his needs. We’ve had some success with the iPad and a program called Proloquo2go, but he predominantly employs it at school with his academics, is more reluctant to make the effort at home or in the community. The truth is I mostly relinquished my longing for words a while back, replaced it with the desire for any form of communication which would work for my son. I resume our trajectory toward our SUV and glance at my spouse, who says “he really tried that time”, and I nod in response. In that moment he wanted to convey something sacred to him, and all I can do is hope his momma got it right. It’s the earnestness that gets me, that elusive thread so pervasive in my son which propels me to work so hard for him, to “get” what he wants. It simultaneously renders me elated, and breaks my heart. What just happened in the parking lot is different. The latter is in no way “typical” conversation, but it is the primary way in which we elicit words from him. We’ve also had some success with a repertoire of repeated words out of context, a litany of language we require he attempt or give us some approximation thereof, mostly so he doesn’t lose what he’s worked so hard to acquire. But the lion’s share of Justin’s language has been in response to a question put to him regarding a concrete concept, such as a snack desired, or the choice of a destination. There has been an elusive “mama” or “more” thrown our way on occasion. This isn’t the first time we’ve had spontaneous speech. I think I hear an “I” and an “l” in there somewhere, and given that I definitively heard an “m” I go out on a limb and respond “Justin, I love you too.” He responds with the faintest of grins, grabs my hand tightly, and resumes his loping gait toward our waiting car. He grips my arm tightly, searches my eyes as his lips form the sounds, pronouncing them with an almost feral intensity. I have no idea what he’s saying, me, who can divine what DVD he wants when he hands me a book filled with hundreds, me who can discern what snack he desires at a venue prior to his pointing for it, me whose gut tells her which bedtime story he’ll choose every night before slumber. My heart pounds to the staccato of his syllables, consonants like “b” and “m” punctuating the air around us. My ten-year-old son attempts to speak an entire sentence. He gifts me his intense gaze, then he tries to talk. I reach out for Justin’s hand once more, then realize he is gripping my arm as he moves in front of me, stopping me dead in my tracks. We give him a few whirls, then our tired middle-aged arms give out, and we tell him he has to walk the rest of the way. “Soon honey, soon” I say, and drop Justin’s hand momentarily so that Jeff and I can swing Zach and thereby distract him. “Are we there yet?” my smallest son whines as my family trudges through the extensive Great Adventure parking lot, and although his tone is annoying I have to smile, because I can clearly remember peppering my mom with that same query in this very parking lot about a hundred years ago. Posted in AMT's Faves, Life's Little Moments, My Take on Autism tagged autism, autism acceptance, iPad, language, Proloquo2go, speech at 11:02 am by autismmommytherapist
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