Inchworming along...

Ethan continues to astound me. It becomes more clear to me every day that what makes him different is a disorder, not a simple delay. Watching him advance at such a phenomenal rate in specific areas is helping the ways in which he is "behind schedule" feel like so much less of a burden.

He is speaking now- albeit at a skill level common to a child a year or two younger than him- and his speech is by turns cryptic and astonishing. (ie: ten lines of gobbledy-gook, punctuated by a precisely articulated quotation from a favorite movie, and followed by more gobbledygook) Speak to him slowly, and clearly, and in a sing-song voice- or even better, in phrases from his favorite shows and computer games- and he is (finally!) capable of following multi-step commands. He regularly expresses "theory of mind" (such as attempting to console a downhearted Ti'anna with the lion's share of his portion of dessert!) and is adept at reading facial expressions and body language, and reacting to it appropriately, though he lacks the language skills to describe what's taking place or how he feels about how someone else is feeling.

Perhaps the most astonishing to me is his growing command of written language. Somewhere along the line, all that endless repeating of the alphabet song, and watching us type and read, he discovered that letters represent sounds. Without direct and intentional instruction from anyone, he has learned to identify over 200 words- spontaneously. He loves to look through books and make up nonsense while tracing his finger along the lines of text and shouting out the word he knows when he gets to it. Last night, he was doing this to a recipe I was working from. Upon a closer listen, the mumbled nonsense surrounding the shouted, "E-G-G, egg! mumble, mumble, C-U-P, cup! M-I-L-K, milk! mumble mumble, O-R-A-N-G-E, orange!" turned out to be real words contextual to cooking. When I listened closely, I could make out: pumpkin, cake, bread, stir, mix-mix-mix! Although none of those words was on the paper, it proved to me that he was drawing the connection between what was on that page and what I was doing, even though I've never read a recipe to him. However, I let him help me make pumpkin muffins frequently, and I always have a recipe printed out in the same format sitting on the counter when we make them as I had out last night. Hmm.

Yesterday, he exhibited the first sign I've noticed that he's not just memorizing- he's actually working new words out based on words he knows. As we were getting him dressed for bed last night, we were yammering at him about his pajamas- "Pajamas, jammies, jams! One foot in, two feet in, hold still you! Jams on Ethan!"

He began repeating the word, "Jams!" He said it in the cutest way, with just a smidgen of a lisp at the end of it, and we giggled and said it over and over to get him to say it again. Then he started saying, "Spell, jams! Jams, J..." Here a brief pause. "Jams. J, A... F-- M, S! Jams!!!" he exulted. We were both dumbfounded.

"Did he just sound out a word?" I asked Tim. Tim looked at me with a smirk.

"Sure sounded like it."

So he can't tell me how old he is. So what? Who cares that when I ask him to "gimme five" he slaps my hand five times, and gets so into it that he has to go all the way to ten just to complete the pattern? (No matter how many times we demonstrate the "right" way for him!) I think its awesome. The victories are only that much sweeter for the trials that proceed them.