Two Cats

Every now and then Julie says something that really gets my attention and clearly shows that she is making progress. Today it happened at lunch. Tangent, our cat, jumped up on the bench next to Julie's chair, sniffing for goodies. Julie reached her hand out to him, trying to pet his face. Then our other cat, Omega, jumped up on the bench on the other side of Julie's chair. I almost missed what happened next. Julie said and signed "2 cats" and looked back and forth to both of them. I was floored! I know it sounds simple, but every little thing is a big thing around here when it comes to language/communication. Julie has known how to count to 20 for quite a while, but this is the first time I've ever seen her apply numbers to anything in real life, and with such certainty of understanding too! Saying "2 cats" is also impressive because it is not a phrase she has memorized from another source, which is what much of her speech is like (called echolalia).

If that weren't enough, she did something else too. In front of her on the table were a cup of water and a cup of milk. We have worked very hard to help her learn to make basic choices, like red cup or blue cup, water or milk. Usually she doesn't show a lot of understanding of the differences, but today she looked at the two cups, pointed distinctly to each in turn, and said "water. and. milk." WOW! That would be the first use of "and" I've ever heard from her. It is SO very exciting to see her start to put the pieces together. We have a long way to go, but incidents like these encourage me that we are on the right road.