A wee bit of an update on my boy James for those interested. James is now 3yrs 10 months and has been doing ABA for uh six months or so. He is doing really well at the tasks he is set by his ABA teachers. He can do things like identify an object such as a car from a photo, and understand different kinds of cars, which is good as understanding categories is a big thing. He can complete a task that involves dissasembling an object then re-assembling the object in a specific order as shown by his teacher.

He has no functional language anymore but makes requests by taking our hand and leading us to things. He has started using PECS which is a system where you show a picture of something in lieue of the ability to speak. He needs to be prompted to use this though, I think half his problem with this is he's just so chilled out. He's referred to as a 'passive' subtype of Autism.
The strongest change for me since the ABA has started has been his eye contact. He now looks in my eyes extensively for long periods, more than a normal kid would in fact. The other day we were both looking in the freezer (I think he was hoping for ice-cream), I turned to him and he turned and looked at my eyes then back at the freezer. Doesn't sound like much but I believe thats the first 'joint attention' I've seen from him.

And he now actively seeks me out for a game as such. The game involves basically him hugging me extremely tightly face to face, and me tickling him, and trying to nibble his ears while he fends me off with great enthusiasm, it ends up with a lot of wrestling and him using hands, elbows, and laughing his head off. But he'll intersperse that with going off and zonign out all rainman like and lining up objects or 'playing' with something with no sign that there's an outside world, as in I can't break in - literally I can put my face in between the object and him and his focus is on the object behind my head; it doesn't waver - just like he used to be. Then later he'll come back to me grinning and jump on me for another round of tickle games. And sometimes I'll hear him in his room, he might have been in there an hour and supposed to be going to sleep and he will just be giggling and giggling loudly like something is the funniest thing in the world, and I go in there and there he is lying in his bed looking at his hand. Gawd knows whats going on in that head but at least he's happy!