"HELLO THERE" is the perfect title for my first post, as it is Jonathon's signature greeting to EVERYONE who crosses his path. For years, Jonathon's echolalia (repeating phrases previously heard and memorized, mainly from movies, to communicate) would seriously increase when we were out in public. Finally, I realized, the increase was due to his desire to communicate/interact with people. After an outing, I said to Jonathon "I think when we're out in the stores you'd like to talk to the people, but you don't know what to say, so you use movie talk." He very intently leaned in toward me, giving eye contact, and responded with a long drawn out, "y e s..." His underlying look... "FINALLY LADY! Could you please help me already!"
I decided the best way to help would be to role play what he could say to people while out. During our role play, he decided on is own unique greeting of "HELLO THERE." To this day EVERYONE Jonathon encounters, no matter their economic, racial, social status or ability level, they get a "HELLO THERE" from Jonathon. One of his most endearing qualities... people are people, no matter what.
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