A post about Hutton

I've realized I haven't posted much about Hutton, my beautiful 4 1/2 year old son with autism. He has been doing very well this year, learning so much and talking 100 times more than he did a year ago. This morning while we were getting ready to go to his speech therapy appointment, he told me excitedly, "Harrison watching Lions!" I said, "Oh, Harrison was watching "Between the Lions" on TV this morning?" and he said yes. This is exciting, because we're working on Hutton telling us about things that he has done during the day. Usually he is fine with telling us what is going on in the present, but not the past. And he's definitely got the future down. The night before something happens, he will usually tell me what we are doing the next day, whether it's going to school, having at-home therapy, or going to speech therapy.

Another behavior we're working on is Hutton's preoccupation with routine. Some times, Hutton is perfectly fine with new developments that aren't a regular part of his routine, but other times, a change will cause him to scream -- a very loud, very annoying scream, usually while he's in the backseat of the car and I'm trying to drive. This was the case this morning when the lower parking lot at the speech therapist's office was full, and I was driving around to the back lot. We have been parking in the lower lot most of the time, since we have been arriving early the past month, but today we were running late, and I had to park in back. SCREAM from Hutton in the back seat, right behind my head, that he wanted to park down there. Laura, gripping the steering wheel, trying to remain calm as I explain there are not any free spaces down there and we have to park up here today. Fortunately, I was able to rush him into the building without much more screaming.

Later on, when Harrison and I were reading a book in the lobby while waiting to pick Hutton up from his appointment, I heard the muted sounds of Hutton's screams from the back room. When we picked him up a few minutes later, his therapist explained that she was trying to switch things up a bit today, and when Hutton asked her to write a "1" on a piece of paper, she'd written two "1s." Oh, now I see that that would cause a furor! Oh well. As I said, we're working on it!