My son FINALLY has a functional yes & no

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

Aged 10

"is this a dog?'

He indicates yes/no on his VOCA

We have been trying for years.

He's finally 'got it'

DS2 has 'no' and a much more shaky 'yes' for things he wants and doesn't want (usually have to prompt 'yes'as he just repeats the name of the item) but he can't do yes and no in answer to ' Is this a ?' question.

Oh ds1 is quite good a signalling something that he doesn't want (shove of hand usually ) There's something quite conceptually complex about 'is this a....?' isn't there? Honestly sphil we have been trying since GM so a long time, and there was nothing, no concept at all. Just a blank.

He is starting to read, so I wonder whether that's kick starting something. (Brain explodes when I try to think how he thinks!)

Wow! What a fantastic thread.

It's too early for a proper drink so will raise a virtual glass to the Turnip family.

This is brilliant brilliant brilliant. I have tears in my eyes (sniff). I am sure it has to do with the reading, and I hope this really 'unlocks' a lot of other stuff. Btw, Mrs. T, I've just made friends with a mum in Italy (where I think provisions for ASD is pathetic) whose son is 8, ASD and non-verbal, and uses Dynavox, and she was asking me about Dynavox here but I had no idea. I'm trying to get her onto MN but she's a bit shy.
And brilliant!!! again

Oh well I think DS1's Boardmaker Activity Pad is part of the Dynavox group.
He really likes it, and will go out of his way to use it. He also walks off and talks to himself with it (so for example he wants to stay at my parents house- is desperate to, and the other day I found him pressing 'sleep, granny's house; sleep, granny's house;'

I am dreaming of the Tango (have a look at the emulator) but pass out every time I see the price (about $7000 I think).

That's amazing -it's not only very useful in itself but a springboard to further abstract understanding.

That's fair brought a tear to my eye. Congrats MrsT - I'm bloody delighted for you!

That's fair brought a tear to my eye. Congrats MrsT - I'm bloody delighted for you!

I think you're right cyber, but I sort of don't get what it means iykwim.

The other big big thing he is doing at the moment all the time is really studying himself in the mirror. Opening his mouth, peering at himself from different angles. I'm sur eit indicates some sort of jump in understanding.

I wonder wether he can understand it because he has a better understanding of existence, or self or something.

dd1 does the peering at herself thing too.

she hones in on any reflection of herself, and really studies the cause and effect thing (eg she raises a hnad and sees herself do it, then puts it down again, then raises it again - you can really see her looing at all the different bits that mve etc)

she does it loads for speech too, and sings to herself. in fact, she first started doing actions to songs when watching herself.

Yes yes that is what ds1 is doing. Just started about 4 weeks ago..... I wonder if he's ready to 'get' verbs or something now.

I might buy him a small mirror to practice speech.

dd1 uses our door handles

we gave her an old baby mirror last year when she started getting into it, but now she is so obsessed that anything shiny will do.

I caught her peering into her spoon at breakfast yesterday.

it seems to fulfil some role for her - she can recognise herself in photos, but her relfection as a moving thing is always "mirror" - so she will say goodbye to her reflection ("bye mirror!") when I drag her away ask her to get in the car for eg.

INteresting...... DS1 has been able to recognise himself in photos for years, but this reflection thing is new......

He's always liked mirrors and checked out object in him, but not necessarily himself.

The bath tap is working well though!

it could of course, be good old mis-learning... at some oint she will have been looking at herself in a mirror, and we have told her it's a mirror, so that si what she now thinks her reflection is called.

It is hard ot get to the bottom of it tbh.

whenever we ask her who itis in the mirror/reflection she says "mirror", but that could be due to the above. In pictures she can either name ehrself - "it's dd1" - or she says "it's me"

DS1 does not show much of an interest in mirrors now though he was fascinated when younger. He can say names of family members in photos but no idea what he would say if he saw photo of himself ( must try !) One new thing we (saying we I mean our new therapist) have found is that his imitation skills are not as poor as we thought. We had been trying all the 'Hands Shoulders Knees and Toes' NT toddler stuff but actually if you stack a blue block on a red block and say 'do this' he will do it. Thinking back when he was in his A-Z book memorisation phase he would always turn over the human body pages very decisively.

Wow, how brilliant. I must have a proper look at that Boardmaker thingy when I have time. I often check up on DS by asking him stupid questions just to make sure he isn't just "saying" (uhing) the first thing that comes into his head, I differentiate by his nod but he doesn't shake his head as cleaerly iyswim. This is so great, remember all those years ago when you never thought he'd imitate? Hope the birthday party goes well with the donkeys, ahh.

I knew it would be your ds! That is such great news and a big milestone for both of you. I wonder what he'll surprise you with next...??

Have to say, I'm a tad too (but in a kind of way)

I haven't dared test him today

The Boardmaker pad thing is great Davros- I'm sure he would really benefit and fly with a more 'intelligent' one (especially the tango I linked to earlier which has been designed with ASD in mind apparently).

I need to start trying to do some sentence building with it.

silverfrog 'it's me' is brilliant. ds1 just approximates his name.

DS2 says 'Mummy' if you ask him who his reflection is . He does the peering thing too though - bath taps are his favourite as well! It was very funny - he had his first haircut with clippers this week and he did a real 'preen' in the mirror afterwards! He also loves to watch the reflection of the TV in windows, mirrors and even our fireplace surround.

I tried him out on the ' Is this a car?' (showing pic of plane) this afternoon. He just said 'plane' - which is good I know - but would only say 'no' if I prompted him.

I've bookmarked the link to the Boardmaker to look at later- would it help DS2 with his word retrieval problems do you think? (I know nothing about it).

oh my goodness, got goosebumps- that's a mega leap and a massive milestone, yay!

Somehow missed this thread yesterday. Well done! . That is fantastic.

Ah sphil a benefit to being non-verbal is that ds1 can't say 'plane' because he only has a yes no choice! Do you think ds2 would choose between cards.

I think the boradmaker thingy would be worth looking at, but there might be cheaper ways for you to encourage word retrieval. DS1 gets real feedback from the voice, but your ds2 has his own voice iyswim. If it was cheap I'd say go for it, but unless you've won the lottery you might want to think carefully

He can choose between cards - so if I said 'give me the car' he would. But do you mean he could choose to demonstrate yes and no? Am being thick here...

He does have his own voice, but (back to what we were talking about earlier) it's so limited compared to what he WANTS to say. I keep wondering about some sort of visual prompting system - like PECS I suppose. I really need to go back and read the manual about the more advanced uses of PECS.

I mean if you had a yes and no card (or yes and no on opposite sides of a large piece of paper) and asked him to point to the correct answer.

I use the paper method a lot. Get an A4 pad and turn on its side. Write (eg) POORLY one the left hand side, then SAD on the right. 'Ds1 why are you cry and you POORLY (pointing) to poorly or SAD (pointing to sad)". He then points.

It's a method that works well for us for all sorts of things.