That's right, I remember our conversation now. Sorry, it's been a long week.
Sounds like he and Cam are very similar in how they learn. It's taken a long time to get him to allow others to teach him. It has been helpful for us to use cars or car related things to get him to engage in a lesson because that is his niche. For example, we used cars to teach him to count and say colors. They use car shaped pop beads at school to get him to work on motor skills.
I would never suggest a typical child to have as much tablet time as my son has, but it has taught him SO MUCH. Even the Youtube kids app. Some of the vocabulary apps taught him to point (because he has to tap on the picture to get a noise ) and it gave him a huge vocabulary (internally). Now that he's learning to speak finally, he doesn't have a problem remembering the names of things.
The Speak Up app is one his therapist at school uses. It has a little picture that moves when the child speaks. The louder the child speaks, the more the photo moves. This taught Cam to really open his mouth and make noise!
I've never been told not to use squeezes when he's upset, but I can see why it would be counter productive if a kiddo is too upset. Cameron loves the sensory input from a squeeze or a hug these days. Didn't start out that way, though. lol
When we are in a new place and I can tell he's starting to get a little erratic and hyper, I'll squeeze his upper arms, then lower arms, lower legs, then upper legs, then I squeeze his head at the temple or the ears. Sometimes, you can almost see the tension leave his little body.