Haven't been on this page for a long time....and actually haven't been going for sessions with Stephen for a while. Was rather discouraged before the holidays because Stephen cries a lot when I'm around and I felt that I was hindering his progress rather than helping him!

Anyway, yesterday's meeting with him was really very encouraging. He repeated many of the things that you all wrote about. He didn't cry at all...for the first time! When I first went into the house, he was even kind of grinning, although when auntie Venjie put him down, he fretted a little and went into his room. My first thought was 'uh oh, here we go again...". But he didn't cry and started arranging his trains. He also made 'choo choo' sounds when I sang the Hallelujah Line. There was a lot of lifting and 'flying' and was really quite tiring (my arm's still aching!) but I think we both enjoyed it. No new words but he counted numbers and said 'go' whenever he wanted to 'fly'.

Hopefully Stephen has forgotten the door locking days :) and will like me better. Praise God for his improvement!

The month of June has been eventful and tiring and we have Stephen at home the whole day but we see quite a bit of speech from Stephen.
while play train - he said "tu tu" sound of train
let's go was also frequently used to request us to go to where he want
of course his favorite - "I don't want" has been readily used in different situation and in simple variation eg "don't want. He was also able to respond using it in making choice. There was once I ask him if he want the VCD I was holding and he said "I don't want".
once he took a toy star fish and repeated after me the name, very clear pronoun too.
he has also been more responsive to request made although he may have preference. Sometime I want to help him change nippy after he pool so I say "come and change" he will come but will wile and look for his mother to do it.
we continue to observe that he pick up a lot of words through music and will respond very positively to the person singing. esp songs that he like, he will give a happy intense eye contact.
he is back to his "line building" using his cars. This time they are usually much longer (use all that is available" and sometime, he will remake it in another part of the house in different shape.
In school, he will be doing some "speech program" soon and he has a "swimming". I need to take a look how he do it in school and never when we go swimming.

the month of July and august will be busy as we prepare to move house. We want to facilitate Deborah and Stephen learning better as they have different need. deb need to have her thing low enough to reach so that she can help herself and learn responsibility while Stephen need his things to be visible and out of reach "for home" so that he will request. So pray with us, esp we have some problem with the time frame constrain of moving out of the existing place to the new place.