Tuesdays mornings are just about me and O hanging out. We usually go out and share time doing a one-on-one activity. Today we just took it easy and hung around the house. For those of you who know O, you know how inherently funny he is. He has an amazing imagination and a great sense of humor. Sometimes. When the stars are aligned just so, spending time with O is pure joy. Earlier this morning he was so impulsive. His hugs were too hard. Sounds weird, I know. He wants to hug kindly but then hurts you by hugging too hard. His impulse control sensors are off. It’s a challenge to hug someone when you don’t know if they’re going to hug you back or hurt you. I gave him some space to play on his own this morning and let him come to me. Then we just played. He told me that his dog, who was a boy, is now a girl. His/her name is Puff and she just had a baby. I asked him what Puff’s baby’s name is and he grinned and said, ‘Puff. Puff’s baby girl’s name is Puff.’ What a nut. We started laughing and laughing together about it. It was a brilliant moment. A year ago I would have never, ever thought that he would be able to answer a question without repeating that question to the person asking. He showed zero imagination beyond reenacting lines from movies, word for word. Indeed, most of his vocabulary/words now are still borrowed. But some of it has morphed into his own words. I am seeing more of him lately in his words and it is rewarding.

Working with O’s ABA therapist has been very insightful. She has a great sense of O. I talked to her about O’s behavior issues that we are trying to tackle. She recommended something called the ABCs. It’s a functional behavioral assessment. Tracking the Antecedent, the Behavior, then the Consequence of each behavior. An A-B-C Chart. It’s a way of tracking his behaviors to try and figure out the triggers for the behaviors. I’m looking forward to this process. I did something similar when I started having migraines years ago. I didn’t know what was causing the migraines so I started tracking everything whenever I had a migraine. What I ate, the weather, the barometer reading, mood, etc, etc. It was an extremely effective tool for learning what set the migraines off.  I would love to know what sets O off. At this point it just looks so random.