Two good appointments today?!

I think it was the dog plate, but for some reason, Mason was completely happy and emotionally regulated walking into his speech appointment.  He hasn't had a really good speech appointment in over a month.  I'm not joking about the dog plate.  It's my parents plate that he has brought everywhere with him the past few days, and it may have helped him deal with it.

There are some pictures of Mason with his plate at the appointment.  And no, I don't usually dress him in pajamas every day.  It was pajama day at daycare.

At the speech appointment, our therapist took pictures of Mason doing various things to help create an adapted type of social story to help Mason deal with coming to speech appointments (and future preschool).  The idea is that seeing pictures of him at school and reading through the book often at home can reduce his anxiety of being at school.  Hopefully it will help.  Mason had a lot of different ideas during the appointment.  He included his therapist in a lot of his play.  We are really focusing on increasing the "circles" of his engagement with people, which means that his social engagement last a longer time (a lot of back and forths).  He may include his therapist or I in his play and engage us (whether through eye contact, words, passing a block to us, etc.), but he tends to lose interest or change ideas quickly.  This leads to decreased social engagement and can lose a lot of communication.  Our therapist always gives great ideas on how to try to engage more.

Mason's next appointment was with his OT in the big gym.  He loves this place so much.  When we first started going in June, he would run from place to place in the gyms.  He never stopped to look at anyone or even notice steps/dangerous ledges.  Our OT and I discussed how far he had come.  He now slows down and notices stairs or high ledges (yay for less danger!).  He noticed some of the other kids playing and was interested in them.  He adapted well without crazy tantrums when we changed room or when the bubbles didn't work.  Both of those things elicited insane head banging tantrums back in June.  Near the end of the appointment, he was so engaged with the OT and bubble game they were doing that our OT said she was going to extend the appointment for 10 minutes because she couldn't stop the great engagement they had going.

All in all....I am so happy that I did not have to watch my Mason thrash in a tantrum today AND it was so great reflecting on the progress that he has made.  Yay for two good appointments!