Brycen's Path to Communication

"Our patience will achieve more than our force." Edmond Burke

When Brycen turned 2 years old, he had about 40 single words and several 2 word phrases. He knew multiple signs and could communicate to us what he wanted by pointing or leading us to it if he didn't already have the words.

By the time Brycen turned 2 1/2 years old, he only had one word left "ball." Ironically, this was the first word he ever said when he was about 12 months old. Despite starting speech therapy a couple months before, he continued to lose. We didn't get it...how can a child all of a sudden lose all of these skills? Of course, there were more signs and symptoms that popped up over those months too.

Just before he turned 3 years old, he was diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, specifically regressive from a clinic. A month after he turned 3, he received his "official" diagnosis from the team at U of I Psychiatry Department. Along with Autistic Disorder, he was given a dx of mental retardation due to his cognitive skills being so low when tested.

Fast forward to almost 4 1/2 years old...after 1 1/2 years of special education preschool, 7 months of speech therapy outside of the school...and he really, really struggles in communication. To date, he has quite a few sounds and word approximations, has been retaught a few signs, but all of this typically needs to be prompted by us. Rarely, do we hear an approximation coming from his mouth on his own.

About a month ago, the SLP at the clinic here decided to focus more on a communication device during therapy appts. We were amazed at how fast he caught on! It was like he was just waiting for this device. The SLP warned us that sometimes it seems like a child with autism will "forget" their current signs and word approximations if too much focus is put on the device. So she wants to make sure to keep using all of it during appts and outside of therapy to ensure nothing is "lost" again.

3 times over the last week or so, the SLP has been so excited to share with me how much she thinks the Go-Talk is actually increasing his verbalization. She says she notices more sounds coming out, more trying, and more imitation when asked. His teacher has also written more notes over the last few weeks saying they are noticing more sounds/imitations also, as well as we have noticed it too. This itself was absolutely exciting and has paved the way to getting his own communication device soon!

The most recent excitement came yesterday though! If I wrote it all out in sentences, this post would probably double in length because of how much we heard from him...so I'll shorten it a little. For those faithful blog readers, they will definitely be able to understand how much progress this is from my past posts about his communication (or lack thereof).

• He said a word approximation for "grandpa" twice-once outside with grandpa and grandma, and then later in the evening when we were talking about grandma and grandpa going back to their house. NO PROMPTS!
• When G'ma & G'pa were leaving, Grandma mentioned getting a hug from him and he said "hu" with NO PROMPTS! This is actually one we have NEVER heard before!
• When they were walking out the door, they said "bye" to him like always. Uusally, we have to specifically ask him to look at them and tell him to say "bye," but he immediately responded saying "bye" to both of them, also looking at each of them with NO PROMPTS!
• During bathtime, he held the toy turtle up to me and pointed to it, making his sound that means to tell him what it is. When I said "turtle", he immediately verbalized "tl" with NO PROMPTS. This also has never been heard before.
• I asked him if the water was getting cold, and he responded by putting his hands on his arms and pretending to shiver (which he does off and on before this) and then also said "co" with NO PROMPTS!
• While tucking him into bed, I told him "night-night" like always, and he responded by saying "n-n" with NO PROMPTS!

So far today, I have heard word approximation for "OK" when I asked him to get down from the back of the couch (his most recent place he thinks he needs to sit), as well as saying "cu" which means "thank you" with NO PROMPTS when I gave him a cookie for snack. His sister did say it first, so it probably helped remind him to use his manners, but he needed no direct prompts from me!

This is amazing progress for him and I really do think our patience is paying off! Just like the quote above says, patience will definitely achieve more than forcing him to try. These are a couple days where something "clicked" in his head to help these things happen. We've had days like this in the past, but not with this many words/sounds in a short amount of time...and he always seems to "lose" what he briefly showed us that day. It seems like he hasn't lost the will to try though today and I can't wait to hear what else he says today!!

15 minutes after finishing this post: Well, the above video proves he's on a roll again today! I can tell he was really concentrating and though it takes him awhile to respond to a prompt from me, it came out so clear!!!