Over the past two weeks I've really been pondering why Bright Eyes script-talks so much. I've come up with these things:

- it makes him feel happy

- it makes him feel calm

- he has good associations with his scripts

Then I started to think about his relationship with his baby sister Coco. He absolutely loves her. He follows her around and tries to play with her. When he does, he knows that if she's not looking at his face, she's not playing. He never talks to her with scripts, but does non-verbal things to try to make her laugh and enjoy herself. It's a really enjoyable relationship to watch.

So then, I realised that he feels calm and happy around her and is able to pursue a natural, normal relationship. 

It made me think that if his relationships with other people had a lot of the anxiety removed from them, and more positive, calm, happy associations, perhaps he would seek those relationships out for the good feelings he gets from them. And then he might start to leave the scripts behind.

I'm going to spend more time just being non-verbally 'silly' with him - doing silly faces, playing tickles and doing all the things that I do with my baby,who can't yet speak. Hopefully I can build into him all the happiness, calmness and good feelings that go with the normal mother-baby relationship which he missed out on in the early years. And hopefully he might be able to branch out from scripts eventually.

Perhaps it's blatantly obvious to everyone else. It probably should have been more obvious from my knowledge of RDI, but I feel like I've just rediscovered a possible way forward.