James has made a bit of communication breakthrough recently. It's one of those that will seem almost insignificant to most people but to us it's a huge deal! It started with him getting himself into a routine of asking for his TV to be put on after school. He has to ask us as it's all too high for him to reach. This is for safety but it is also a good and well known 'trick' to encourage communication. In the last week or so, he has started to ask me to change his DVDs. This is totally new and totally fantastic!! He comes and gets me and gestures my arm up towards the discs. I get them down and he chooses.....
.....then half an hour later we do it all over again! I want to put some form of photo/symbol communication into this situation now and will probably use the simple 5 symbol wall mounted communicator which he had for Christmas. The major deal here is that he is consistently requesting something which is not food or drink - we have another motivator even if it is the TV!
