"I don't like pizza!" was what my son said when we told him we were having it for dinner later on that night. "No, I don't like to!" were his words when asked if he wanted to go bowling. Both of those things he said clear as a bell. It was raining all weekend and we were trying to find something he'd like to do. If you watch the second half of this video of him on YouTube you can see how much he enjoyed bowling. I guess that's a thing of the past now. Regardless, he has been saying things lately that we've never heard from him before and it's great! We haven't heard much improvement in his articulation but he is definitely saying new things all of a sudden. Praise God!

Follow up:

Speaking of praising God, when giving thanks for his food Braden now begins his prayers with "Heavy Fodder." It's a beautiful thing! 'Heavy Fodder' is of course his way of saying 'Heavenly Father.'

Last week we had another IEP Meeting for Braden. It seems our lives are one big long meeting these days. Anyhow, the meeting went very well. We have a great IEP team that really cares about our son. Still, IEP Meetings are an emotional drain for me. The whole meeting is centered around my son's deficiencies and how we can help him. I'm not a big fan of meetings. My least favorite meetings are IEP's for my own son.

In order to help Braden initiate speech more often the speech therapist recommended, and the autism specialist agreed, that Braden should use PECS again. Hopefully it will cut down on the amount of hitting and bad behaviors he currently uses to communicate his displeasure or frustration. I must admit, I was surprised to hear that they recommended PECS. I know PECS is good, and proven, but I was still surprised. I guess it goes to show that I don't know everything!

In the meeting we also discussed Braden's educational setting for next year, 3rd grade. I mentioned that we were strongly leaning toward mainstreaming him again, since this year he is in the Special Day Class. The autism specialist, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, suggested that he stay in the Special Day Class. Others at the table agreed, including my wife who I had been trying to convince. So it seems that Braden will likely stay in the Special Day Class for 3rd grade. He is academically behind other kids his age, not to mention socially, emotionally, etc.

On another note, Mad Skills Motocross has been a HUGE motivator for him to eat all his dinner. We've been using that video game as a serious reinforcer to get him to eat whatever we put on his plate. "Eat all your dinner and then you get to play Mad Skills Motocross." It's working well! Prior to that game dinner time was a major pain for us and Braden often threw fits to get out of eating his food. Now that we have that game in our arsenal of parenting tools it seems we are the ones with the mad skills! Haha!