Santino continues to be encouraged to use gestures and body language to communicate what he wants and how he is feeling. Today, as he often does, Santino communicated his basic needs by leading me to what he wanted, posturing his body (body language), gesturing and/or producing vocalizations to relay the emotional intensity of his need or desire. He communicated his displeasure through vocalizations and communicated his joy and pleasure through smiles, giggling, laughter, and sing-song type vocalizations. Santino was reinforced whenever he repeated a word relating to an activity or skill in which we were engaged. He has become more interactive of late, and will sustain eye contact with me for longer periods of time. In all our activities, I repeat basic commonly used words over and over again and use them in a variety of different contexts, saying the word itself many times and then using it in two-word combinations to show how it can be used (modeling it for Santino). While saying the word, I also demonstrate the way that I expect him to use it and set up temptations that will encourage him to use it. For example, today I removed an activity with which Santino was playing and placed it high up on a shelf so that he could see it but not reach it. When Santino indicated he wanted it, and reached or pointed to it, I asked him, "What? What do you want?” - giving him time to see if he'd say it by himself - and allowing for several seconds to make sure I've waited a sufficient amount of time for him to reply. After this wait time, I modeled the word as a question and asked, “Do you want the ball? Ball?” While this technique to shape and model functional language has not as yet yielded consistent outcomes, it is anticipated that with time and patience, Santino will understand expectations, make the association, and produce the word (speech production). We ended the session by engaging in a hand-washing activity. I am gradually fading physical prompts to assess and facilitate the acquisition of skills needed to eventually perform this skill independently.