I have to agree with everyone in saying that Tony is doing really great things! I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a child who has made as much progress as quickly as Tony has. I feel the one of the biggest and most important things that we are seeing at this time is Tony’s extroversion. So many times, kiddos with ASD just really curl up into themselves and it’s so hard to reach them. As long as we keep Tony out of that shell, he is open to learning so much! To see him show so much interest in so many different things and different people is nothing short of amazing. After some discussion on Mon., we decided to use a two handed sign for cup/drink. We thought that maybe Tony was having difficulty discriminating between the signs for eat and drink since they are similar. In terms of Tony’s vocal/verbal development, I think he is doing marvelously! At this point we are seeing more imitation of sounds than words, but I’m OK with that. Tony is producing various sounds (good b/c we continue to increase his phonemic repertoire) and various sound combinations (good b/c this is repetition for more complex speech productions and is allowing the muscles of his mouth to become more familiar with patterns of movement neccesary for accurate speech production). For example, I know “ah boom” seems silly, but it requires Tony to transition from an open mouth posture to a closed one. “Tickle” requires him to move from a sound produced in the front of the mouth to a glottal sound produced in the back of the mouth. These patterns of movement are essential for future speech development! So, although some of this stuff seems silly and maybe nonfunctional at times…there’s really a reason! That’s all the time I have for now. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for the kind words Anton!