Great News THAT'S SO GREAT!!  What an awesome story!! Try to forget the fear of regression and stay focused on other things.... Like how impressed everyone was with his desire to communicate!  Boy, that says a lot. Thats a HUGE leap! Hey I am glad to read your post. It must be thrilling to finally be able to understand your sons communication, that makes life so much easier and his future so much more bright, even more so. I am glad all worked out. My son finally had his evaluation to see which assistive communication device he would need.  He did great!  He quickly moved up to the one that fit him.  It's called the Vantage but he knows it as his "talking machine".  He just got evaluated yesterday and was using it today.  According to his speech teacher he asked for food, drink, different color markers and a ton of other stuff.  He did so well his 45 min speech session stretched to 1.5 hours because he  did not want to stop.  This boy usually has trouble attending for 10 minutes. They said he was so happy and laughing and proud of himself.  My non-verbal son has a way to communicate.  PECS is great but he loves to hear the speach and it can grow with him I am told.  He actually made sentences! He so wants to communicate. Always has.  It has been a source of frustration for us all.  They also told me he makes verbal sounds when he uses it.  I am so glad we stuck to our guns and had the school evaluate him even though some people did not think him ready.  He is more than ready! Bad part.  Fear.  Fear that he will some how regress and this will all go away. I hate having the fear of regression always in the back of my mind when things go well.  I pray that he continues to progress.  His evaluators were very impress with his desire to communicate.  He will use any means he can to try to get others to understand what he wants.  They said that is a strong predictor that he could someday learn to speak.  His speech teacher says the autism has his speech locked in his brain and  now we can try to unlock it.  He wasn't supposed to keep the machine.  The evaluators are sending a report to the Director of Special Eduacation reccomending and he school buys get one from somewhere(I forgot).  The evaluator actually let him borrower hers till he got his own because he loved it so much I am so proud of him.  In case anyone is wondering he is 6 years old. Thanks!  Right now he is still using it to request items like pecs but maybe soon he can expand on it. "I WANT"  seem to be his faviorit words lately.  Sill, I proud of him. OMG that is soooooo awesome Zayzer I am so happy for you Wonderful news!  You must be thrilled. That's so nice they let you borrow a communication device.  Keep us posted on how he's doing with it.  how wonderful!!!!  what an awesome thing for your little guy!  the world is going to open up for him!  i am so happy for you! That is truly awesome and inspiring. I hope this is a sign of much more progress to come! That is just amazing. It will allow him to have less frustratons which is just wonderful/I am absolutely delighted for both of you!  From what I've seen,I can pretty much assure you he will not regress in speech.  I'm sure his Speech therapists have told you this, in light of the above story.  I have seen many kids with devices.  They either fly with it and speech very often comes in, or it doesn't work out. My son has a communication device.  Although clearly marked on his IEP "Assistive Technology", they have yet to provide one (2 years now)!  Anyway the device has not worked for him.  He would play with it like a toy - push any symbol just to hear the voice and then laugh (maybe because voices were familiar?). Lately we've been thinking of trying again and this time have a stranger voice (11 year old boy) and see what happens.  In speech therapy, when prompted and it meant "business", he could use it appropriately to some degree (still had a hard time however). Just curious, is "Vantage" the one that looks kind of like a Game Boy with the different screens? Wow, to be able to unlock all that language that is in his little brain! That would be so wonderful. He's probably been ready and waiting for something like this! This is very exciting! Zayzer, what wonderful news!!!  I can't imagine how exciting this must be for both you and your son!!!!  Congrats and wishing you and ds lots of success with this!  Keep us posted!! Thank you everyone!  Things are still going geat with the communication.  Notime, it does not look like the game boy.  I have some pictures of it with him that I will try to post but I have a lot of trouble getting pics on.  About Assistive Technology on the IEP..... We also always had that and did not know why he did not have a communication device.  Someone at his school gave us a heads up that Assistive Technology dosen't just mean electronic devices.  That the  PECS he was using is Assistive technology and if we wanted him to have an electronic communication device we had to have it written into his IEP specificaly.  Then the school had to have him evaluated for the right one for him.  This had to be done on the outside  by TTAC.   Zayzer - Wow!  You mean on the IEP it should say "electronic communication Device"? He was evaluated by someone from outside. (Don't know what TTAC stands for though.)  Kind of a moot point right now anyway, but I'm curious. It says on the IEP he that he would be evaluated for the use of one.  TTAC stands for The Training and Techinical Assistance Center.  Based in VA Tech. www.ttac.vt.edu That is great!  Sounds like an exciting communication tool!!
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