Fear

Zeb has recently become afraid of the dark.  Not the indoor dark, like lights out at night, but the outdoor dark. He is afraid to walk by the glass doors at night.  He also makes someone carry him in from the car when it is dark out.
I started to wonder about this, developmentally speaking.  So, again I asked our neurodevelopmentalist about it and she said:
 "Yes, fear is a developmental milestone. There are a few different components that go into fear, but one of the biggest factors is increased sequencing. In order for them to have a fear they have to be able to process different (scary) scenarios. This consists of both inproved sequencial processing as well as conceptual thinking. When kids are not able to process at a higher level, and they do not conceptualize, they do not fear much because they are by and large disconnected from their world. It appears things are headed in the right direction."

I am so encouraged that Zeb is accomplishing so much with his therapy.  I have another major development to blog about tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Breakthrough. . . .Sort of

He said it!  Zeb said "Mama".  Unprompted.  He wanted to get my attention to ask for water and he came over, tapped me on the leg and said "Mama".  Oh sweet music to my ears!

Unfortunately though, he doesn't really know he said it.  When asked to say "Mama", he ALWAYS says "Baba".  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

I asked our neurodevelopmentalist about this and she said that speech comes in three parts.  So, developmentally, he isn't at the place where he can put all three parts together to speak at will.  What happens then is he says words that are clearly words, but when asked to say them he can't produce them.  Thus, the word "Mama" comes out when he wants to get my attention, but if I ask him to say it, he can't make his mouth form the word correctly.

BUT - we are getting there.  One of these days his speech is going to explode!  We're so close.

Meanwhile, I walk around with a goofy grin on my face because my boy finally called me "Mama".