P-R-E-S-T-Y-N

How do you spell Prestyn? "P-R-E-S-T-Y-N." Yay, we all say with such excitement!!!

Not a day goes by in our home that Prestyn will not say something or do something that has our jaws dropped to the floor. Last night I was sitting on the couch feeding Cruz. Prestyn walked up to us, pointed at the bottle and said bottle, and spelled it. I looked at Amos and said "did he just spell what I think he did?" Amos said yes he did!! I was in such amazement, that this little boy who could not even say the word bottle over 7 months ago was now spelling it! The same goes for his name, he can spell it over and over!

We always believed that Prestyn would learn to communicate, just did not know we would be hearing him use multiple words in a sentence. When he is saying something on his own, he will use 3-4 words. When he repeats after us, he uses about 7 words.

Do Amos and I take all the credit for this improvement? Nooo way. Ms. Maria and Ms. Melinda along with his speech therapist Sarah and his occupational therapist Angela have worked day in and day out with Prestyn and have helped him use his intelligence in a productive way.

Even before we got the diagnosis on Prestyn, we knew he was a smart little boy. He would sing you a song he just heard, try and repeat words from movies, look at a shape and attempt to tell you what it was. He could watch the same movie or listen to the same song over and over and never get tired of it. HE LOVED REPETITION, he still does, but it is getting a little bit easier to change things up on him without him having a complete meltdown.

Today, his teachers are in awe. They send home a report everyday on what they did for the day and how he did. Well, last week they introduced cards with dots on them. It was Prestyn's job to count the dots and find the corresponding number on another card. Well they reported that he did just that, with little help he was able to complete the activity! The principal even visited his classroom last week and got to work with Prestyn! Ms. Maria told me she feel in love with him and cannot wait to work with him again. His teachers have been transitioning Prestyn into another class. Prestyn is the only child in his class that is verbal, and they think that he needs to be around other children who talk and can be more social. This is going to be a slow process, with Prestyns social skills where they are, and his lack of adjusting to new environments, they are spending 5 minutes in the new class. Either Ms. Maria or Ms. Melinda stay with him to help with the adjustment. It is everyone's hope that when it comes to the full transition he will not regress. They are confident that a slow transition will keep that from happening!

We are still working on some behavioral issues and some social ones as well. It is very hard when we go out to the store or somewhere there are other people besides our family, because people see Degan and Prestyn and want to talk to them. Well if Prestyn has never seen you before or even if he has, and he just does not want to talk, he will throw himself on the floor and bang his head. It really freaks people out, and it gives me a tummy ache, I just ask them to leave him alone and continue on their way. It makes it worse if they stand there and try and console him or continue to try and talk to him. This one is a tough one for us to deal with, we cannot just keep him isolated to avoid situations like this, we are still trying to figure out ways to control these types of situations.

All in all we are very pleased with Prestyns improvement. He has come such a long way. Any one that tells you that Early Intervention does not work with children on the spectrum needs to look at Prestyn. I am very confident that had it not been for Dr. Zipps advice on getting Prestyn therapy early on we would be fighting a loosing battle. I am glad Amos and I were not the parents who stand in denial that something is developmentally wrong with our child. I am also glad for the support system that we have, because if it were not for them we would also not be where we are today!