YAY! It's the summer holidays!

Jordan is thrilled that the long-awaited holidays are upon us. He has a busy schedule involving checking out his favourite YouTube clips: he particularly recommends Little Shop Of Horrors, Hey Baby by DJ Otzi, The Last Unicorn and fave Elton John songs. He's also busy collating what he has and hasn't got on video and DVD. Any suggestion from mama that a little swimming trip might be in order was met with a firm refusal as he has taken a 'no-shoes' vow for the duration.

So, determined to get him to do SOMETHING that I think is important, I have a cunning plan to photocopy the titles of some of his favourite videos and see if he can recognise the words without the pictures.

Creature Discomforts

The charity Leonard Cheshire Trust has launched a series of animations to challenge perceptions of disability. You can find more here at YouTube. Enjoy!

My people will call your people

For a young man with autism, SLD and speech problems, Jordan is sometimes quite keen to communicate with others, but only when the subject is his favourite Disney film (currently Pete's Dragon) or a subject of his choosing (currently any other film with a Pete in it, like Peter Pan or O Brother Where Art thou?) or any real life Pete (a former friendly school bus driver). I'm sure you can see a theme here.

Jordan's dad having to work today, I decide to take a quick bath. The phone rang and I assumed that it would go to answerphone as Jordan finds it fiddly to answer with one hand. Imagine my surprise when he brought it upstairs to me, chatting away with one of my husband's clients (and it wasn't about Pete - any of them!) I duly praised him and nearly got my ribs broken in an almighty hug. All very positive.

My brother rang for a chat later. Jordan beat me to the receiver, pressed the right button and said 'Hello, Uncle Ralph, what can I do for you?'

How I do love a big step forward.

DISCLAIMER: The glass of wine was left out from last night!