This is perhaps a bit of a geek post – one for those who are really interested in the data collecting down to business nitty gritty statistics of LAMP in Archie’s life. Communication is about far more than utterance length, but an increase in expressive vocabulary and ability to combine words has greatly improved Archie’s opportunities to communicate. So sometimes I like to count the number of words he’s coming out with.
Last night we had Joseph swimming Monday Archie not (talking about his brother’s after school swimming lessons), followed by Louis car tomorrow Archie not (talking about his other brother’s violin lessons). Five words in each utterance. The not is still at the end, but this is just becoming a quirk of Archie’s communication (and I’ve grown rather fond of it to be honest).
As an aside extra curricular activities aren’t easy to find for Archie (with the exception of surfing of course), but last week at the beach a friendly stranger stopped me to tell me about a trampoline class for children with autism starting in Saltash on Thursday evening. It sounded really good, there was mention of foam pits as well as trampolines. I was given the contact details which I managed to lose while wrestling with Archie over some handbrake related incident. I’m not sure that we could make it anyway as Thursday is a regular respite night, but if anyone knows anything about it please let me know, and if interested in the class for your child it might be worth asking around. Sorry to be so vague.
I finish with a picture of Archie with his brothers, it’s only recently that he’s really posed for photos so it’s still a bit of a novelty to get the three of them in the same photo. Louis appears to be eating a sweet and Joseph’s t-shirt seems to be covered in dinner. Hey ho.
A Life Unlimited 
Lovely picture! Great news about the sentence length too – from one who is also thinking about these things. H’e new tutor did her first day with us yesterday – she has 30 years more energy than me and by the end of a trampolining session had H saying ‘ E, tickle me’ which I thought was pretty good going. I love the ‘not’ at the ends of Archie’s sentences – it also shows a real awareness of what other people are doing separately from him.
Ha, I think we cross commented on each other’s blogs at the same time. Am looking forward to seeing more H video! The not really interests me, it does seem (to me) to give an insight into how A processes what is happening. In fact, judging by his conversations, what he’s *not* doing seems almost more important to him than what he is. Interesting given the year spent on visual timetables etc etc – it’s never really occurred to me to discuss what we’re not doing.