Josh ("Ed") has a Voice!

As a quick background to this story, josh is our youngest, 4 years and 10 months old. He has unexplained delays, both with gross motor and fine motor, and no speech aside from "mom." He has about 125 signs, but with his fine motor delays most are modified and recognizable only to those of us familiar with his particular style.
When we moved out of our house a year and a half ago, I bought myself an ipad with my saved up sewing money, and justified it by forking out another two bills on a communication app. (Yes, I realize my craziness at attempting to justify a $600 purchase with another $200. As you will soon read, it was totally worth it, however delayed the gratification was)
We played with the app but never fully implemented it. Therapists, teachers, and specialists were never able to get properly excited about the potential and I let their ambivalence rub off on me.
However, I finally gave up rights to my iPad and set j loose with it last week, and it has been so exciting to see him take to it. He spent the whole first day asking us all to tickle him, and walked around church yesterday asking for knuckles.

See vid here

We had pancakes for breakfast on Saturday. We all sat down and I asked him what he wanted. Pancakes. I put a pancake directly on the table in front of him and waited. He asked for a plate, then syrup, then a fork, and finally for me to cut the pancake.
He is doing a lot of naming, especially people, and we are just letting him go at it with the thought that he is basically doing what a pre-language child would do, babbling and practicing and learning the power he has. We are not restricting his access to it at all, much as you wouldn't tape a mouth shut ;)
Today he wanted to tickle again so I upped the ante and we both used it to specify who was going to tickle who with me modeling it and letting him practice how to string words together. Mom tickle josh? Josh tickle mom! And he would.
He especially loves the buttons for people and will sit there for ages just pushing their buttons so to up that ante we have been asking him where everyone is. Where is dad? Dad is at work. I model it a few times and he picks it up quickly.
Most of the words available to him on the app are words that he has signs for so we are simply giving him another mode to communicate the same things (that the whole world and not just those of us familiar with his modified signs can understand), but he also has concepts on the app that he has no signs for so he can organically increase his vocabulary as he discovers the concepts and has the desire to communicate it.
We have an "I feel" folder and a "describing" folder that we have been introducing him to. He already comes to me and stifles a fake yawn to tell me he is tired, so when he did today, I showed him how to use the app to say "I feel tired."
Based on how well he has taken to it in a week, I am very excited to see what comes out of his "voice" in the weeks and months to come!