Summer Break

I took a little break from blogging the past few weeks. My mom was out visiting and we were very busy. I have a lot of blog ideas to go through but I thought since Eli starts preschool in the morning I would just post an update for now.

He starts a developmental preschool here tomorrow. 9am-12pm M-F. It is an integrated developmental class so there are children like Eli who are delayed or have different types of disabilities, but also developmentally average children too. I like this idea because Eli won’t be singled out as the only child in class who is far behind or “weird” and also because there are a mix of children they can all learn from each other.

Since we started the trifecta of therapies (ABA, speech, and OT) only 4 months ago, Eli has learned so much. Before we started he was completely nonverbal, only saying “daddy” occasionally and signing about 20 words. He didn’t know any colors, or sounds, or even have good function over his fingers. Today Eli signs over 20 words and phrases, he can point out 5 or so colors, he can say close to 20 different animals sounds, he can count objects (and does so using his fingers) up to three, and he says Mommy, daddy, nana, go, yes, no, and blue. He is also learning to say shorted versions of words to let us know what he is trying to do or say (cheetos= EO’s, play dough= Doe, Richie(therapist)= EE!)

We still have a long way to go to get him to where he should developmentally, but I couldn’t have asked for better results in these four months. Eli will still be getting all three therapies, plus in class speech and OT. The hours of his after school therapies will be lower than what he was getting, and we will lose a couple of his normal therapist, but I have no doubt that we will continue to keep seeing amazing progress!