Pigeon

Have you heard of Don't Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems?  It's one of a series of books about the misadventures of a pesky pigeon.  I made the above video to fuel Rémi's obsession with these books:  it's The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, the fourth in the series.

I love a good kids' book.  I bought Bus when Gaston was three because I figured if I loved it, then he would learn to love it.  And I was right.  Despite having practically no speech, he had memorised the dialogue and would recite bits of it using the same tone of voice I used when reading to him.

The best part is, when Gaston outgrew the book, Rémi became obsessed with it.  We bought Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late, which Rémi loved.

Both boys were entertained by these YouTube videos:

We also had the videos on the iPod, which meant I could just hand Rémi the iPod and earphones and he could sit relatively still in restaurants, grocery store checkouts, doctor's waiting room...  If you can figure out the YouTube-to-iPod trick, then you might have a great tool to keep your kid occupied in public (it doesn't always work:  Gaston is immune).

When we flew to France in 2009, these books and iPod videos were a godsend.  They kept Rémi happy during long flights, restaurant meals and stays in unfamiliar places.  By the end, he was reciting the words over and over.  It may not seem like good language development, but for autistic kids, echoing stuff is often an important step towards actually saying stuff.

As an aside, the Puppy video was hardest to find, but we found this one.  I think it's the best of the three.  Don't you?