Khalid, time for a bath.
No!
Khalid, you want a bite?
NooOOoOoOoO!
Khalid, come here!
Noooooo!
Khalid, cookie?
NooooOOOoOO! No! No!
Khalid, shoes on!
No no no no no nooooo!
It’s a bit frustrating, but at the same time, still wonderful to finally hear what Khalid is thinking. He doesn’t want milk, he wants Joo. (juice)
He wants the computer On! but his shirt Off! and he emerged from therapy this afternoon without a one. The nice therapist packed it in his lunchbox for us.
We got him dressed this morning, and within minutes he came back to me and took my hand and said Off! Shoes! So we took them off. Then he whined and said no no nooo! And so I took the socks off too. And then he was happy.
He wanders around the house calling out Ruuuuuuth! because he’s not sure where she’s gone. Ruth is working with another family, and Cindy, who has been us for two weeks now, is patiently teaching Khalid to say her name instead. (‘Indy!)
Some of Khalid’s vocabulary can be a little difficult to translate though. Kim is milk, buhjo is puzzle, and tay-tow is lay down.
And then there are the words that are clear enough, but adorably confusing. Like SheeEEEep. According to Word World, SheeEEEeep? is what you call out when you are looking for someone. Like your mother. You knock on the bathroom door, and you call out ‘SheeEEep?’ and your momma says ‘Yes Khalid, I’m in here.’ It also works in the kitchen.
SheeEEep? (Yes, Khalid. I’m in the kitchen.)
The best way to get Khalid talking is to entice him with what, in ABA terms, we call a reinforcer. In the real word, we call this bribery. 🙂 Today, I got Khalid to jump through verbal hoops for some peeta-butta. Yep, the kid loves his peanut butter.
He knows the words blow and blue, but will sometimes confuse them. Last month his therapist asked him to repeat the name of the colored card he was holding. Khalid paused a second, leaned forward, and then blew on it very gently. Blow, blue- same difference, right? And he also blows on his drink because that’s what grownups do. But then he also tried to blow on the surface of the water in the toilet, and I’m pretty sure he’s never seen us do that.
Khalid’s requests are all still one-worded, unless they involve the word No, in which case they can be up to six words, all of them the same and all of them all mashed together- No no no no no no nooooo! But still, Alhamdulillah, these are amazing and exciting times. 🙂
