I’ve had such an amazing week with Reilly.  He is pushing hard with his communication skills.  He is more verbal, not words but sounds and I try and get him to practise them everyday.  You can see him watching your mouth intently trying to figure the shapes and movements.  He is using his signs more and has made up his own too which he showed me on at least 8 occasions last night which coincided with him wanting to go upstairs. For now I think that is what it means – I might be wrong.  Like charades on a whole new level!

He got an ipad mini for christmas and he loves it.  Mainly for watching kinder eggs, junk food taster.com (if you haven’t seen his youtube channel take this as a warning, it does exactly what it says on the tin) and Pocoyo.  But he also uses it to point out photos of who he wants to see and where he wants to go.

I got such a shock earlier on in the week when I sat and watched him type in Jet2.  He loves holiday brochures and tries to say pool and trees etc when we look through them.  He has moved on from that to this lot of logos.  He can remember how to spell universal and illumination which I find just fascinating!  He uses the caps lock to make sure they are typed correctly too.  What a brilliant memory!  It doesn’t stop there though.

He has also been typing in number letter sequences, different sets like this but many more:  NK59DMXNK59DMENK59DLVNK59DMF.

If you google that you will get nothing.  If you add a space between each sequence NK59DMX NK59DME NK59DLV NK59DMF will find that they are  Arriva bus registration plates, not just any old buses, buses from Newcastle upon Tyne.  Buses he has either been on or seen.  Given the fact that he sees the reg plate for all of about 15 seconds max as the bus approaches I’m pretty damn well impressed!!   I think its safe to say he has a really good memory.  We knew he remembered twists and turns in roads from being tiny but this has blown my socks off.

When I made the realisation last night it gave me so much hope.  I cannot express how much.  All autism parents must feel the same.  Sometimes on my dark days I think is this it, is this my level of communication with Reilly.  Crying, frustration on both our parts – it’s just hard with a non verbal child, many don’t realise until they see us both in action,  so when you see a little chink of light that is leading to a new pathway  it is THE greatest feeling.  I am excited about how I can learn to pursue this brilliant memory talent to help us communicate better, maybe a whole new learning style whatever it brings it’s got to be positive, maybe a visit to the casino you think?