It’s hard to recall our lightbulb moment, which might be particular to our situation, but I think it had to do with realizing the percentage of times that we said, “No thanks”, “not now”, “maybe later”, “not yet”, “maybe”, “I’m not sure”, etc. that made me feel that not always being totally affirmative or certain was A-okay and probably more functional, reasonable and accurate.

Knowing it and teaching it might be two different things, but I’m trying to help her understand how to use those statements of preference, along with “I don’t understand”, “What did you say?”, “I don’t know +/- what’s that?”, “What are my choices?”…etc, etc.
It seems to have cut down on some frustration that Eleanor, not unreasonably, might have felt that she HAD to do this or take that regardless of druthers, simply because she didn’t know the right words or have the means to effectively express otherwise…sometimes having to do something, and maybe even right now, matters, but sometimes it doesn’t and choice is operative.
Or at least it seems to me.

@Lolasmom, Charlie still struggles with multiple choice questions. He tends to say he wants the second item; I practice asking him different combinations in different orders.

@neil, hmmmmm, a new food to add (unnamed) to M’s list….

@Daisy, I think what you describe about Amigo behaving so much like a normal team that one overlooks some underlying needs applied to us with Charlie lately. He’s been so easy-going, willing to adjust himself to schedule changes, willing to try out new things; we’ll got for a period like this and then suddenly have some difficult days.