“Deev wike da bwack sert.” – Handwriting and Autism

Bitty has made some progress this summer with his handwriting. He pretty much couldn’t write a couple of months ago (he could do his name but anyone outside of his family and teachers would not have known that’s what it was). He still has a REALLY hard time with writing, but he can make some recognizable letters now. Shaky and hard to read, but recognizable. What’s even more impressive (to me anyway) is that he can spell some words on his own. I think he remembers the letters from all the reading he does.

A week or so ago he asked me to “wite a memo” with him. Not sure where he heard the term “memo” but I asked him what he wanted to write.

“Deev wike da bwack sert.”

At first I thought he meant “Steve” from Blue’s Clues (but doesn’t he wear a green shirt?) because Bitty had been watching that just before he came to me with his memo request.

I started telling him the letters to write “Steve,” but he handed me the pencil and said, “Mama do.”

Sometimes I’ll hand it back and say, “Bitty do.” but that time I took the pencil and wrote it for him.

“Steve likes the black shirt.”

“Nooo, not Steeeb, Deeeev!” he said in a silly tone (trying to be patient with his clueless mom, lol).

Deev? Who is Deev?

So I handed him the pencil and said, “Bitty do.”

He took the pencil and with much effort wrote a “D” and a “V”

Light bulb moment for me, lol. Sure enough, he wasn’t referring to Steve of Blue’s Clues, but to Darth Vader, or “D.V.” from his Mii Plaza on the Wii.

Hahaha 🙂 And he’s right, “Deev” likes to wear a black shirt.

He used my “memo” as a model, stopping to carefully check the letters he wasn’t sure how to make, and slowly wrote out the rest of the sentence.

“DV likes the black shirt.”

He did a great job on it, I had him show it to dh so I’m not sure where it ended up but if I can find it I’ll post a picture :).

3runningcircles

I’m a mom of three boys on the autism spectrum — 11-yr-old id twins and their 7-yr-old little brother — and wife to my dh of 19 yrs who is a SAHD. My blog is where I share our story, as well as topics relating to autism awareness & acceptance, twins, the silliness three little boys can get into, and whatever else is on my mind. Hopefully some of what we’ve learned over the years is helpful to others (or at least entertaining).