Of language, that is!  Although in this household, that’s not the only possibility.  Tristan can say THREE syllable words very recognizably now.  His pronunciation is improving in general.  He’s starting to label colored objects by color, and is learning so many more labels for objects.  He is REALLY starting to understand that people all have labels – their names.  He’s a lot more confident in his speech and will imitate just about anything, even if he’s going to garble it up.  That last part is fairly recent – for the most part, he just wouldn’t try to say it if he knew he’d fail.

The cutest word I can recall hearing him say lately is “tomato.”  Granted, hearing a 2.5 year old say “tomato” is usually old news; I met a kid one month older than Tristan last night in the toy store who was telling me about how he was Superman and he sounded like a kid rather than a toddler.  But that’s just it – Tristan has such a cute little voice, likely because he takes such delight in talking and getting it right.  His “tomato” sounds like “toe-MAY-toe!” – complete with exclamation point.  He’s still working on “potato,” but..

Tristan can say CIRCLE properly!  NO MORE “GA!”  Well, he says “ga” automatically and then thinks to say “circle.”  He’s also saying “happy” properly – that one he used to pronounce as “hah-ee.”  He learned the word “puppy” recently – and can apply it to the puppy, wheee! – and we used print to help him understand how to say “happy” with the Ps in place.

I really love that I can demonstrate a word for him in print and it helps him to understand it, at this tender young age.  It helps a lot when he doesn’t understand a lot of the spoken instructions a typical kid his age does.

Without the print, he’s still picking up so much.  Tristan’s ABA therapy sessions have included “labels” – they ask him to touch a particular card with a picture.  I very rarely see him get it wrong these days, even as they are just teaching what the picture should be called.  Not too long ago he would only get very familiar objects correct.  I also think his pronunciation has been aided by an exercise they’re working with him on including Kaufman Cards.  (The link includes pictures of some of the cards.)  The child is asked to say something based on the picture and you go down the list until you get a derivative the child can say, and the derivatives are based on the way kids typically learn to say these words.  A crafty person could probably make them; they are expensive, but seeing Tristan perk up languagewise like he has would retroactively make me spend that kind of money on them (which is not relevant to us right now, as we have a set on loan, but if this is something you are concerned about in your child, it could be a good investment).

For about a month, we’ve been trying to work on “not everybody is mommy or baby.”  He balks on “daddy” some but is getting much better.. however, even yesterday when I labeled two figures as “daddy” and “baby” he repeated it back as “mommy” and “baby.”  He’s trying really hard to say the names of just about anyone that I prompt him to try, and he’s particularly interested in the names “Mia” and “Emma” – two of his friends.. well, he does have several friends named Emma since just about everybody uses the name Emma, but we usually see them one at a time and in their own context.  Technically, he can say my name as he can say “kiwi” – I find this amusing since he’s quite willing to say “mommy” but he has another word he says well that technically could refer to me.

In closing, I will digress.  We met another child who likely had autism last night, right around the same age as Tristan (not the Superman kid from the earlier paragraph, but during the same mall trip).  Unfortunately, that kid bolted far in the other direction before we could get any contact info, interspersed with Tristan bolting whenever the other kid was retrieved. so we did not.  I’m really disappointed because I’d have loved to have them play together.  The dad reminded me of us in a few ways – aware of the challenges and still having fun with the baby.