J's Special Friends

Since Nov 2016, J would treat his 4 special friends as his "Precious". At times, he might put them to sleep. There was once he took my hub's windbreaker and laid it properly on top of my drawer organiser. After which, he would laid his 4 precious on top of the windbreaker with care, just like what it was shown below.

In case you can't see who they are. From left, there is Kangaroo. It is a tissue box cover. Next is a toy baby. He named her "Felicia" (Such nice name!). Third is a puppet froggy, which he brought it wherever he goes. Lastly, is a grey tom cat, which is no longer working (cables are spoilt and the cat is "bandaged" with black tape) but he just treated them as his precious.

This is only a beginning milestone of his social play - being caring and loving to friends in his play. This is a little progress that I celebrated and which, I am proud of.

However, almost 2 years ago (I knew about his autism in Feb 2015), all these were totally impossible and unthinkable. At that time, since he was 18 months old, he was only interested in playing with 8 blue megablocks and 4 red megablocks, mimicking the opening and closing of lift doors. He never was interested in building train tracks but used the train tracks to make into 4 panel doors.

After reading the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman, Hub and I started joining him. We were "lifts" after shower, when he would be carried to the room to change or when daddy piggy-backed him. We even mimicked the sound of lift door opening as he was being carried or piggy-backed. I talked to him anything about lift, telling him about how the lift goes up and down, axles and pulleys, button panels, panel-doors, numbers, etc. 2 weeks later, my tears fell when he started to connect train tracks, instead of just making train tracks as lift doors. And few weeks later, he started to build upwards using megablocks. Mid-2016, daddy used Lego to help him build tall buildings with lift and he was receptive to that. These were some of the progress. And the amazing thing is J learned his numbers, alphabets, counting and reading through lifts - the importance of child-led learning - Let the child teach you. We soon realised there are so many things to learn from lifts.

Friends... Do not lose hope! Believe in our children! They are getting better. J's interaction and social awareness skills may still be in progress. At this point, he still could not relate to people yet. But I know, he will get there some day. The photo was the 1st step to being socially aware and it is one of the milestones to be celebrated.

Currently, another 3 friends are added to his team of precious. They are robot, gingerbread man and the dog, which he named "Bark" because it barks.