Verbal Skills?

As many of you know, Boo Bear is a man of few words, though he is very expressive.  Once every four to six months a word pop outs, and it is completely on point.  The rest of the time, he relies on sign language and his Ipad.  If those fail, he simply takes you by the hand and leads you to the desired item.  One of the apps on his Ipad is called Tap to Talk.  One can switch the accent around and for some reason Boo prefers the British accent.  There are certain words that he likes to make it say, but I never really paid much attention to them, they were simply white noise.

A few days ago I was hanging out with Boo and his wonderful PCA, A.  Suddenly, Stevie, our blind dog, came charging around the corner and crashed squarely into my knees.   “Son of a biscuit!”  I yelled as the dog bounced off my knees and continued on his merry way.  A cracked up.  “That’s it!” she yelled.  “That’s what?” I asked, rubbing my knees.  “When Ravi gets mad he makes the Ipad say “Biscuit! That is his way of swearing!”  I realized that she was right. When he is frustrated the Ipad does indeed say biscuit, over and over.  My son has learned to swear, appropriately!  I am so proud!  (No snark here, I actually am proud, I will take communication skills any way that I can get them.)  Then, something else occurred to me.  Ravi’s other go to word is “beach”.  Only, it is said with a  drawn out British accent so it actually sounds like “beeetch”.  You can guess what he is trying to say.

So, this lead me to my final point.  Non verbal does not mean that my kid misses a trick.  He can communicate in so many ways without once using his lips or tongue.  Also, what I may think is white noise may actually be an attempt on his part to communicate.  When he is repeatedly hitting one button on his Ipad, it may be more than a stim, it may be an actual statement.  If nothing else, my son is full of surprises.