So Happy About Sad Faces!!

Jacob has made some wonderful progress with his independent speech this weekend!

First of all, something that just about made me come out of my skin with happiness! He has been working on recognizing emotions for at LEAST a year in therapy. It is really, really, REALLY tough for him. He's gotten pretty good at being able to label drawings of expressions, and can sort of show you a few different expressions with his own face if you ask him. In the past I have found him looking in the mirror, practicing (looking in the mirror, smiling and saying "make a happy face!"). He really struggles right now in recognizing these expressions on pictures of real people, or in real life. SO this weekend he was watching Care Bears. He looked at me and said, "Sad face." I looked at the television and sure enough, the Care Bear on the screen was SAD looking. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO Jacob!!!!!! Not only did he recognize it, but he SHARED it with me!

The other thing was that he was sitting on the floor and told me, "I have spider." I looked down and there was a spider running across the floor in front of him, and he was crawling after it! He has been working on this lately in therapy...they started out with him just making statements about what he has and what he sees (because his language tends to center about getting his needs met - what he wants). And now they are working on the IA saying, "I have ____" and then Jacob has to say what HE has (not copy the IA - they have two different things).

I am so proud of him. :)