Necessary Roughness

Yesterday morning my younger daughter, who normally cries for someone to carry her out of bed in the morning, woke up on her own, got out of bed and walked over to “Mom” in the bedroom. Mom said, “well if you can get up by yourself, you don’t need that binky.” So my daughter throws it at Mom. For a child working on self-expression, this is actually a good thing.

She has been slower to get rid of the binky than most kids, but “Hello,” we have a reason or two why. At times though, when she goes down for a nap or to sleep, she pulls it out of her mouth and I wait to see if she goes to sleep. Sometimes it works.

She has learned a new word, “upside-down,” which means either hang her upside down by her ankles or flip her upside-down from a carrying position. She uses this word as a command, which, again, is a good thing. “Read” is becoming a frequent command word, after she brings a book to one of us.

Another thing she hadn’t been able to do until recently is obey the command to touch something. She still has trouble touching items on her head that she can’t see, such as ear, chin, etc. This morning I said, “touch ear” and she got her cheek, which is an improvement. She can now reliably touch items she can see on command, such as items in a book. A tip from the Autism book I read seems to help: try something twice, then if she doesn’t do it, guide her to do it, and praise her anyway. I think this has worked a couple of times as she learns what is good behavior.

Last Monday she began speech therapy classes at the same clinic where she does her occupational therapy. At the end of the class she got a sticker, whereas at the end of the OT session she usually gets a Dum-Dum. As we were leaving the clinic, she said, “Lollipop! Can you say, ‘lollipop’?”

Two weeks ago my wife recalled a conversation:
S: Can you say banana?
Mom: Banana.
S: Can you say apple?
Mom: Apple. Hey, can you say apple?
S: Nooooo.