I just had to post as DS (30 months, dx ASD) has finally started to imitate!
He has been doing a part time ABA program since November/December and although he has done really well with attention, interaction, matching and general play skills I was beginning to think he would never get the imitation.
This week he started to copy things like touching his head, clapping, touching his nose and then yesterday he finally began copying sounds - ooo, baa, maaa, taaa and even jooo for juice!
I know it's a tiny step and he is still far behind, but it made me so happy!!
His receptive language is slowly slowly improving and now he hopefully is getting imitation it could lead to speech.
After a while of feeling stagnant it's great to get a new skill and imitation seems like an important one