I was talking to our in-home trainer a while back, and I was letting her know that my monkey just simply does not want to write anything. He hates it. He hates using a crayon, pencil, you name it, he hates it. He fights us. He feels it’s work and he hates it. She suggested that when we use PECS, we should make him put the letters in order. Many kids on the spectrum learn to read by memorization. I told her that I do have a puzzles where one has to put the letters in order. The problem with those puzzles is that the words are things like hen, cow, or sun. These are words that my son can’t relate to and thus he may he may not understand, since I don’t have a hen or a cow at home.

She made some PECs and brought them to us a couple of months ago. We decided on 10 words. Words that he likes and we put them all over the house. And when he wanted them, he would have to sort out the letters so he can get whatever he wanted. We decided to use words like juice, nuggets, jump (for trampoline), dog, and shower.

A few weeks ago when she came to visit us, she asked how he was doing and I told her it wasn’t working. When he wanted something, I’d ask him to sort out the letters. Even though I was very excited at the time, he hated it. We struggled. It was always a fight, and sometimes the meltdows were just not worth it.

She suggested to move back a little, to start of with just asking him to show me the picture instead of asking him to sort out the letters correctly. One step at a time.

Today, as I’m doing the laundry in my bedroom, I hear him with the velcro. I told myself I would go check up on him in a few minutes since I was almost done with this load of laundry.

But my monkey comes over, grabs my hand, takes me to the picture next to the shower, to show me that he sorted out the words correctly. Then he points at the little shower picture, and claps. His sign for more.

And just like that, after months of struggles and tantrums and fights and me wondering if it’s all worth it, my beautiful little boy showed me that it was worth it. He communicated to tell me he wanted to take a shower.

And as I text our in home trainer to tell her our news, she replied, “Today we win. Today he crossed a finish line.” ❤️🥰💙