Doose!

We had our first appointment with our new SLP this morning. It went REALLY well. I'm more than pleased. The SLP, who I'll refer to as M., seems to know her stuff about ASDs. Jesse really seemed to be comfortable with her, and I was too. She asked me lots of questions and took my responses and concerns seriously. I also discussed with her one theory I have about Jesse's speech issues (again, I'll go more into this later). And she suggested that Jesse may have some apraxia, which is basically a motor issue affecting speech. I'm definitely thinking that this is a possibility.

Overall, M. was very pleased with Jesse. Jesse is very eager to communicate and does interact pretty well. So the big thing is to just get him communicating and expanding his vocabulary. She suggested working on both signing and speech. If apraxia is indeed an issue, then using signs until his motor skills catch up should be incredibly helpful.

Oh, and after our appointment, Jesse and I headed to McDonalds so that Jesse could play in the playroom to burn off some energy. Before we got out of the car he reached for his sippy cup and said "Doose!" (which is Jesse-speak for "juice"). That's the first time he's said that word unprompted. These are the little successes that keep me going.