I Want Cookie

Update on the previous post.  

We're working on him using a sentence to express his needs.  "I want...."  

It's not that he's never put three words together, but other word combinations are him repeating things from stories or repeating phrases the boys use.  For example, "We'll be back, right after these messages."  Now granted, someone other than a family member might have no idea what he's saying, so I don't know if it counts.  

He's had success a few times in the last couple of days with his "I want..." sentence.  The first one he said WITHOUT prompting:  He came up to me in the kitchen and said with no hesitation between the want and the object, "I want cookie."  And of course, he got a cookie...and lots of hugs and praise for using words! 

Another one he said unprompted two nights ago:  "I want pie."  And the one last night:  "I want cake."  Notice a theme?  

The pie one I was quite impressed with.  He had helped me make a strawberry banana cream pie last week (for our anniversary...22 years!), so he did have that for a snack two nights in a row,  but when he used that sentence, it was already gone. 

And the cake, John's birthday was recently; it's not like we have pie and cake all the time at our house!  ;)

Still working on making it consistent.  He gets anxious when he knows he "on the spot."  

Good stuff

Communication

One of Evan's first form of communicating that he wanted something, such as juice, a snack, to watch a favorite commercial again, etc., was signing "more."  It worked for so much.  For something on tv, it's still what he'll sometimes do.  For juice, he moved on to saying "juice," or sometimes just "please" when it's obvious what he wants, or just handing me the cup!  He still tries the "just handing me the cup" trick, but he's not getting away with it so easily.

We're working on making a sentence.  

I want juice. 

 Yes, having the please on the end would be great, but we're not there yet.  We're still working on the three words.  How it's been working is he'll come up to me, hand me the cup, I'll say "what do you want?" or "what would you like", and he gets all nervous with a huge smile while giggling.  

Then I say, "Say, 'I want juice.'" More giggling, but eventually, he'll say, "I want."  And then I say, "What do you want."  And then he'll say, "juice."  

Yesterday, he did come up to me without prompting and said the "I want" part.  This morning after being prompted, he said, "I want," and before I could ask the question, he said, "What do you want?" ...understood by a trained ear.  :)  

We'll soon have those three words said together to make a sentence.