11/21 in --

My sister (who is a nurse) works with an occupational therapist who works with autistic children and the therapist thinks that Cannon could be on the spectrum, based on what my sister told her. I already knew this, so I’m not really shocked. I suspect that he might be, but I am doing everything I can to help him make progress with his speech and other developmental things he should be doing.

Today we were working on following directions again, and he completed some of the tasks when I asked him to, rather than me having to physically have him complete the tasks. I have a sound/animal book and I asked him to press the button that matched the animal. He did a few by himself, but he had to have me direct him with some of them. Normally he wouldn’t want to. I asked him to put certain puzzle pieces on the puzzle. He did one on his own, when normally he would be too distracted to do more. I also had him build something with his megablocks. I had to help him with that. I have to get him at a good time for him to follow directions that I give him. But I need him to follow directions most of the time instead of just sometimes. Earlier today I asked him to get his shoes and he ignored me, when he didn’t used to. So we are working on it.

He also tried to repeat a word that I said today, when normally he doesn’t. I’m VERY excited about this! He was say the “guh” sound of the letter “g” and I said “guh, guh, good.” and he tried to say “good” back to me. This is great! He also tried to do this with the “wuh” sound last week. We’ve made it into a game.

He has been making me new phrases and sounds too, which is good.

Lorelei is four months old today! She’s getting so big. <3 She’s starting to get bored easier. :P