Both my boys are on the autism spectrum, and have both been receiving speech therapy for years. As a result, we have seen huge strides in their speech and language development, and we are so proud.
I am used to serving as a kind of “translator” for my kids, especially with people they don’t know that well. Like, “that means he wants a fruit snack,” or “he wasn’t talking to you just now, he was reciting an entire scene from Ice Age, including the sound effects.” 🙂
It’s not very often that my husband and I have to translate for each other,but it does happen from time to time. A recent example of this was when my oldest kept saying the same phrase to his younger brother, “Don’t get knock.”. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the heck he was talking about, so I finally asked my husband.
“Oh,” he smiled, ” that’s how he says, ‘knock it off.'”
I was so confused until I realized “knock it off” was way too abstract for my kiddo, and “don’t get knock” made more sense to him. This made me smile, and now it’s one of our favorite little inside family jokes.
But, I do get some weird looks when we’re out in public and they are horsing around and I shout, “Now boys, don’t get knock!”. 🙂