Communication and Autism

Even when the words just don't come there are ways that you and your child can communicate. At one point and time our speech therapist wanted us to get a dynovox. These are the talking computers that uses pictures to help the child speak. There pretty neat. When I was in high school there was a young man that used one of these boxes to communicate. He was pretty cool and funny. A great guy. Children can understand the pictures. Since our children start speech therapy at young ages they are shown a lot of flash cards and taught the words that go with the pictures from day one.

Communication books. Now these things are fabulous. We have a communication book and they are actually pretty easy to create yourself if you need one. There are lots pictures that go along with this and as long as you separate them into different categories. For instance the categories are colors, shapes and numbers, cooking, bugs, garden, weekend, pets, community helper, verbs, outer space, art, circle time, feeling, play, fruits/veggies, snack, dress up, body parts, shower, reinforcers, and describing on the flap of the communication book are the pictures and words for I, you, it, yes, help, want, play, no, look, like, don't like, go, put, do, get, take, clean up, big, little, bathroom, under, between, beside, finished, out, in, on and more. We had a small communication book our speech therapist made up for us when my daughter first started speech therapy. It was okay but trying to find the pages to get to the words that she was trying to say really didn't help and made her frustration even worse. When she was in the first grade the school created up a communication book that was better organized and a bit bigger. Still use this communication book today when it's hard to understand what she needs or wants.

And the last way of communicating with your child no matter what age they are is sign language. I've learned quite a few words in sign language and it is something that my daughter knows. If I just use the sign for please when she forgets to ask for something and ask please, she will correct sentence to include the word please. If she is suppose to tell someone thank you all I have to do is say her name with the sentence, "What do you say?" while using the sign for thank you. She will then say Thank you very much (inserts name).

Younger children it's easier to to get them to use these items and even for the older children with no speech. For older kids middle school and up try using computers. You'd be surprised. Even children who develop no speech can still speak typing out their wants and needs and telling you whats on their minds. Remember these are children who have been learning with flash cards and words since day one therapy started. They know the words. and remember as I have said it before these are children that see in pictures.

So go out and learn something new with your child. They will love that your taking the time to come into their world and they will take notice. Entrepreneur on!