Miracle Worker

It's amazing to me how much can happen in the span of 3 weeks. We have seen some pretty major steps in the right direction and we owe it all to our new ABA therapist Lacey. She is a miracle worker! She really is! We have seen such improvement in our Desmond since she's been coming to our home.
Here are a few things we've been seeing these past few weeks in Desmond since the last update:

Talking: The past 3 weeks it seems like Desmond has been a lot more vocal! He's still mostly baby babbling, but he's added some new noises. He's added the "S" sound and the "H" sound lately. It's so funny because when he babbles that way it really sounds like he's a snake or speaking Parseltounge (the snake language in Harry Potter). "Hasha-Hassa" is an example of the parseltounge he speaks ha! I need to catch him doing it on video because it is seriously so adorable when he does it!
In ABA Lacey has specifically been working on Desmond vocalizing for the things he needs or wants; which is amazing because it's starting to pay off. This past week she's been able to get him to say "ma" for more, "swa" for swing, and "up" for when he wants to get in his swing. As the weeks go on we're starting to see him verbalize more consistantly!! It's very exciting! We're trying to keep our hopes realistic all the same. It seems that we're heading in the right direction when it comes to Desmond's speech and we couldn't be happier.
Imitation: We have also seen some pretty exciting things from our Desmond in the imitation area too. He is consistently giving us and others "high five"! It's so fun to see him doing this not just with us, but with family too. In our experience he usually does these tricks in ABA for about a month before we see them at home, then about a month of him doing it at home and he'll start showing others like family. Lacey has told us that in his sessions he's started clapping on his own and waving on his own! We are hopeful that with some time we will start seeing this at home and with more time he will start sharing these tricks with others.

From what Lacey has told us his sessions have been going really well and that he seems to be getting better and better everyday! Of course, some days are better than others, but over all we are seeing steps forward! We truly credit all of this amazing work to Lacey. What would we do without her? She has been such a huge blessing in our lives. She's only been with us for about a month and we're already seeing so much growth in our Desmond. We can't wait to see what future months look like with her!