sir dantes turned four yesterday! happy birthday to my little man! he’s such a cutie.

he had a really good day, which started with a new train table first thing in the morning (a big thank you to daddy staying up to three in the morning putting it together) and a family-gathering party that evening. well, he’s definitely not a baby anymore…he is officially a little boy.

and, this is the magic year!

as you can imagine, we have read just about every article written about autism. we have spoken with hundreds of parents and as many therapist and doctors as we have been able to about autism. the one phrase we hear most commonly is “if you’ve met one child with autism, then you’ve only met one child with autism.” if you are not familiar with the phrase it basically means that because autism manifest itself in so many different ways; many children with autism fall on different spots on the providable spectrum line. but, there are many common traits among the autistic population.

Follow up:

approximately half of autistic children and adults are non-verbal. of the half that are verbal, only a small percentage of them can hold a reasonable and intelligent conversation. many of those that do speak become like parrots (only repeating certain phrases) or they only speak when they feel that it is absolutely needed. now, that does not mean they are not intelligent. many understand exactly what you are saying and find other ways of communicating.

although some of these children start speaking as late as the age of nine, usually if an autistic child is going to speak…they usually start between the ages of four to five!

the same with potty training.

sir dantes is not potty trained and it is not because of our lack of desire to train him. trust me…we hate changing the soiled diaper of a toddler! for some reason he is not ready. at times he seems comfortable with sitting on the potty and other times he seems frightened of it. i tend to think his brain does not yet recognize the feeling of the urge to go. regardless and even though some autistic children may not be potty trained until six or seven, the age of four seems to be the magic age of getting potty trained.

so this year, hopefully, will be a year of big break threws! not to put sir dantes under any pressure….

well, let’s wish him luck and a happy year!