Of course, everyone is going to react differently to different medications; but if Benadryl isn’t cutting it, trying something else might be in order.

(For me, I learned a trick from a friend — if you’re having allergy problems but can’t afford the drowsiness that Benadryl gives some people, try a children’s dose (12.5 mg. instead of the 25 that one adult capsule is), see if that helps without too much impairment. It’s done the trick for me the times I’ve tried it.)

And Sam may not have very much in the way of words, but he does a darn good job of communicating some of the important things, including hunger (and what he wants!) and wanting to be outside.

Computers are fun for everybody — I hope that Charlie falls in love with them and finds a program he really enjoys. There was a student at Scotty’s school whose parents bought him a computer after we’d gotten some donated & found some software that he liked — parents who thought their teen son had no interest in computers at all. Sometimes it takes just the right program to catch their interest!

Train chuckles are the the low rumbling laughter at the back of the throat accompanied by the inability to make eye contact — which I get, ’cause I can’t make eye contact when my allergies are bad (it almost hurts, and my eyes will sting and tear up).

Words help Scott a lot when he’s upset. He’ll take his magnet letters and spell out “ache” or he’ll write down “head” on a piece of paper. Words for Scotty — those are the things that I remember most about him in our childhood.

We can’t have a ‘conversation’ with him so much as type out a question and get him to type a one-word response that may or may not appear as an actual answer, but he loves doing it.

I’m a talker. I always talked to Scott. My grandmother always talked to Scott, would sit him on the computer and type out things to him. There’s always a way for communication.

What you’ve said about Charlie’s ‘complex’ points hits home with me. Scotty will say “Go bah” to ask to go to the bathroom (something he learned in school at age twelve, argh), and other things, but when his allergies are bothering him, he wraps his head in toilet paper. We usually can tell that he’s got a really bad sinus headache before them — everybody’s cranky with a sinus headache — but it was something that made my grandmother laugh, and something he sticks too.

When he’s upset, he sometimes tears up paper. He just uses the physical to communicate more. Though once when I was eight, our mother came to visit us, and Scott, twelve, managed to say, “I STAY I STAY I STAY” about a million times.