Oliver: December 2010

Saturday, December 18, 2010

He's Pointing!

For the first time Oliver pointed at what he wanted! Oliver wanted something on the counter so he grabbed my hand took me there and had me pick him up. Then I wouldn't give him anything, but tried to get him to point at what he wanted. I would point at something that I knew he didn't want and ask him if that's what he wanted and then I'd point to whatever I thought he DID want. I just kept asking 'What do you want? This one or this one?" I would be pointing to each one myself. Finally he pointed at the item he wanted. He has now done it several times today with both Ciara and I. We still have to encourage him A LOT to point, but at least he's starting to do that.

He has also been doing really well with the 'more' sign. At one point a couple weeks ago we feared that he started to forget it, but he picked it up again and even more than before. We are now trying to teach him to sign 'please' and 'hungry'. Great to see him learning.

Where we're at with Asperger's Syndrome

When Oliver was 18 months his pediatrician told us he was probably autistic since he had no words. We went to many doctors and finally got in to see a Psychologist at the University of Utah when he was 22 months. Dr. Peck evaluated him and told us he had a feeling that Oliver had Asperger's Syndrome but couldn't give a full diagnoses since he was so young. He is now a little over 2 years old and we will have to wait till he is closer to 3 to go back and get his diagnoses. We are working with the Early Intervention and have an Occupational Therapist, Behavioral Specialist, and Speech Therapist coming in and helping with Oliver. We are trying to teach Oliver sign language and he is slowly grasping new signs.