Although he has used these sketchers for years, it has always been by chance that I find a drawing he created.
These drawings I have shown below, were all brought to me by J. He would appear, hold it up facing himself so I couldn't actually see it (but he doesn't realise that), and point to the drawing whilst telling me what it is.
I'm so impressed! He has never tried to communicate like this before, and it's brilliant. Before he would only say a word for a drawing if I asked him as I pointed to it.
He pointed to each square and said (from left to right), "Story Makers, Spaceman, Blue Cow".
I know that these are from The Story Makers children's television show that used to air a few years back. I have blogged before about this programme, and the drawings he created from their characters, here.
He said "Hawwison" for this next drawing. He means Harrison as in a child's name. I presume this is a child from his school, and I wonder what made J draw his legs like that. It will mean something, such as maybe this child wore some jazzy trousers, and J has interpreted it in his own way.
This was meant to be the last drawing I was putting on this post, but as you'll see below, J brought me in another one as I was typing! For this picture immediately below, J said "Liam". Again I presume this is a child from his school.
Now I know this drawing is basic, but it is the fact that J was forthcoming with it after he had drawn it, and he verbalised directly at me. It's little steps, but I appreciate it so much.
Whilst I have been composing this post, J has been bobbing around looking at what I'm doing. He repeats the names of each drawing to me as he sees it on my laptop screen.
He then went off for a few minutes and reappeared with this........
We sing it together a lot. He instigates it, and I then sing it, with him joining in at specific parts where he knows the words. The characters he has drawn are from the cartoon sketch part that features a character called Shadow, who sings with Bear. The character on the left is how it looks from the side profile, and this is his interpretation of it, which I think he has managed to create very well.
To give you an idea, if you haven't seen the show, this photo is a still shot from Shadow's little sketch, where she sings nursery rhymes with Bear....
You can see what he has tried to reproduce. The still shot is not the one he has tried to copy though - I couldn't find an image on Google for his one.
He is sitting next to me watching me type this. Every time he sees his drawings appear on screen, he points and says the name of it. If only he knew this whole blog centres on him! But then if he understood that concept, I wouldn't be writing a blog about his disabilities.....
