Does Anyone Have Suggestions for a Non-Verbal Autistic Child Trying to Talk?

I really feel for your friend with this, it's such a shame when our little ones get labeled and then passed over. Has your friend confronted them about the PECS and lack of support? Who is his keyworker? My 3 year old has a keyworker at playschool who I hope would tell me if she had any concerns. I went direct to speech and language for Bong as his language got very stuck at one point with few more words than your friends little angel. They gave us sheet s full of pictures based on certain letters like B or P with about 6 words to learn, when I could tell what Bong was trying to say they sent me a new letter. Although Bong still has a speech delay a lot of work and naming everything we saw everywhere until I couldn't think of anything else to spot and name and working with flash cards and my constant what is it? seemed to help him. The speech therapist signed him off last year, sometimes I think it's too soon but you can have an almost age appropriate conversation with him, his audiable ability is 2 years behind but this is how his brain explains the world to him so is a different problem. Some days my 3 year old speaks equaly well to my 7 year old and it's on those days that I realise how much he struggles. I hope you can find a way to help your friend, I really do, poor little chap needs some extra support, he'll probably get there by himself but a little guidance and help for mum wod be nice.

I have known several non-verbal autistic boys between age 6 and 10. Most of them did not talk when worked with, its just a matter of time and if they are every going to develop speech. They definately need to use his PECS, and I have seen people going through PECS and quizzing the child, what is this? What is this one? And not letting them finish until they answer. Now, that makes problems in its own right, since they might not know the word or might meltdown. Does he go to therapy after or before school with a licensed therapist 1 on 1? Most of the kids I knew did.

Get him into speech therapy right away. This is unacceptable. et upa meeting with the teacher and the person in charge. He is not getting what is available to him and it is a shame. When my sister's daughter was in preschool, she received speech services in the class. They should be using his book and working with him. We had a friend that was working with an autistic child and she was getting him to talk by rewarding him. For every thing she asked him to do vocally, if he did it he would get an m&m. They were something that he really liked and he was totally nonverbal. My son is also nonverbal and is 12. He has CP. I know how frustrating it is. He is trying to speak a few words, but they don't try to understand what he is saying. He had an augmentive device to talk with, but it is broke, but even when it worked, we had trouble with the school using it. Keep working with him. If one thing doesn't work, try another. Things like this, it seems like there is no one answer. It is different for every child. I feel for this mother. Get him into speech!! Help her get what is needed. They alot of times do not volunteer services that are available. Maybe even putting him in different class would be better. Support her and be there for her. If the school does not help her, find an advocate that can. There is one in every district. She needs to find someone that can get through to him. Not everyone will and you need that special person!!

I was watching this documentary the other day, it was interesting. It was about this woman called Sue Rubin who is autistic, and she managed to break out of her silence, using a keyboard to communicate. She was attending college and everything. Very inspiring. If you don't know the story I'm talking about, here's a couple of links... News story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999831/site/newsweek/ Sue Rubin's site: http://www.sue-rubin.org/

Sorry to learn that. I have a cousing who is like that and unfortunately there was change for many years now. She is now around 35 years old. The ones that really suffer in such situations is the family.

My sister is a non-verbal autistic. She was taught a few words by my mother. It was a long and frustrating process for her, but my mom stuck to it everyday. My mother would take my sister around the house and show her different things and tell her the words for them. If my sister wanted one of them, she would only get the object if she said the word for it. My mother also used flash cards with different pictures on them. It took my mother about a year to get my sister to say 4 words, but it is very much worth the effort! You can't rely on a school to teach autistics, because many schools do not give them the individual attention they need. Just keep trying!! It's a long road, but it can be done.

my boyfriend had been working in a school for autistics for more than 5 years now. and he's so happy with the kind of job he has. i hope that the boy get to be sent to a special school where he can be given more attention, attention that he really needs.

Autism is something that takes a lot of knowledge about and expertise to get through to many of these kids. If the school he is in isn't conforming to laws that are put in place to help the child learn perhaps the mother should address the school, then if needed go to the district. If the district does nothing then perhaps it's time to talk to a politician, state representative or even congressman. What about utilizing sign language? Have they tried that avenue? Even a combination of sign language with mouthing the words can sometimes be helpful in situations like this. Unfortunately autism is one of those things where no 2 people are identical. What can work for some may not work for others. Even thinking of trying another school all together, simply based upon the fact that the teacher and the people in this school don't seem to be able to connect can make a difference but this can also be a hinderance if the child cannot handle change. As the saying goes "the squeaky wheel gets oiled first" so perhaps it's the mother's time to speak up and voice her dislike at how things are being handled.

Teaching sign language is one way to speed up the commmunication when one cannot form words well. If he mouths the words as he signs, things are much easier. It cuts down on frustration and supports his acatually trying to talk without The use of technologies that might be expensive. If technology isn't an obstacle, then a "tech-talk" or simolar device can be used as a communication aid. He can still say the words but also press the buttons that activate a voice in the unit, that says the words in the order they are pressed. Options are always available if you know where to look. Try some of the organizations for the deaf to get more ideas on approaches to speech problems. I bet they can give ideas and may hae a referral list for some of the devices that are used.

From my experience and talking with my girlfriend who has an autistic child. He needs repetition and lots of patience. If his routine is broken or changed that will cause him to lash out and not want to do things. He needs to do his PECS with the same person at the same time everyday so that he is comfortable. That is the key to helping. He needs to be in a special class to help him regular day care is not the answer. She should look into different programs for autistic children.

Does this little guy have an education plan? If not, he needs to be evaluated and set up to receive all the therapies he needs on a regular basis, including speech therapy. With some children, it takes a lot for the brain to be able to sort out the proper words for all of the confusing sensations and thoughts swirling about in their heads. My son stopped talking completely at 18 months of age. It took about more than a year to get him talking again and several years of speech therapy to help him learn to talk in a manner which other people could understand. If this little guy has a special-ed plan in place and it's not being implemented, the school administration needs to be notified.

Well I have met a boy with such problem in my social internship for the college curriculum. I was working under an NGO (SIDHI) working for the Children With Special Needs. I met 3 autistic children there who were under the governance of the ngo. One of them was almost non verbal. He always blabbered the same thing " Nani ka Pota " which means Paternal grandson of maternal grandmother . He never said a word other than this. But what I have heard is that he is now a lot more verbal. What was being done for his training was to let him freeely interact with other children. He interacted with various other children who had some or the other disability so he did not fell diffident at his own handicap. He was becoming more free towards the end of my internship. He now can speak around 60 words and it has been around 8 months. Considering that he had only about 1-2 hrs daily with those children that too not very regularly( He lived in very remote region) its a very remarkable acheivement. Now if this can help you I will be pleased . :-)

have you tried to bring him to a doctor because maybe there is still a chance for him. you can also start teaching him how to talk by using sign language then spell out the words that you are telling to him. patience is needed for this boy.

Pictures have done a world of good with my son at home and preschool. Also, ABA Therapy (he only gets 6 hours a week)has helped him in several areas including speech. Then of course there is his speech therapy. we have just really worked with him repeating and repeating..It gets monotonous but it is worth it! we litterally would say for example:(once he had the word cookie) "More cookie. More Cookie. More cookie. More Cookie." Pausing after each time to give him the chance to respond or try and upon a try even if it was one sound, letter or syllable of the word he would get the cookie or whatever the item was at the time. Now in less than a year, actually really since September he has just exploded and we are working on "I want cookie, I want milk, I want train" etc. We've come to the point wher if he just says only one or two words we can say "say the whole thing" and he will say "I want...whatever the item is or "I need help" this is huge development for my son and he feels so impowered now at the age of 3.7 years. I hugely reccomend the use of pictures and the patience to repeat and see what happens but this does take time and also if you can afford ABA or IBI therapy, the gains are huge even for a small number of hours. anything you can afford is better than no hours at all. We sacrifice for our son's six hours because it is so beneficial in so many areas including his awareness and listening skills ability to sit and attend longer and tol isten ie "Cleanup your train" and he does. Or "Clean up your train and then you can play with your cars" and he does. It is absolutely fabulous! He has much better eye contact and says Hi Daddy when my Husband gets home from work and Hi Mommy when I pick him up from preschool. I hope this helps... :)

A close friend of mine has an autistic daughter who she sends to Boston Higashi school I could ask her what the school does in getting her daughter talking.

first of all i would talk to the parents of the child if it seems that they themselves arent seeing how their child's being treated while they're not looking..if they are supposed to be a developmental preschool the staff should be well aware of this childs disabilities and should be encouraging him with EVERY opportunity that they get.. and i will also say that if they arent doing what theyre supposed to and they "ignore" his special needs it can actually make him REGRESS!!!!! ok.. speaking as a parent of a 9 year old autistic son (who goes to summer school EVERY YEAR JUST SO THAT he wont "regress" or "forget" what he learned at school throughout the year..it is an individual summmer program with just him and one other child) who is moderate to severe at times however deemed middle to high functioning as well.. there are a vast amount of differences when it comes to the level of understanding spoken words with autistic kids and for that matter their level of "caring" about what it is that your trying to communicate with them.. my son (although started saying words at about 1 1/2 and then regressed completely) didnt start saying anything again till he was about 5, with an extreme amount of speech therapy both inschool and at home and by us.. now at nine and for maybe the last year he has come along way.. my best suggestion for these parents is to start out incredibly small but not to totally underestimate.. they arent going to just be able to engage in typical conversation.. i used to be soo upset with the fact that i couldnt ask my son "how was your day at school today" or "what did you do at school today" but the fact is that there ARE ways for him to answer that question that i just didnt see.. what we did is worked VERY hard to get him to understand BASIC positive and negative responses to questions that he would have interest in. for example.. he had NO interest in expressing his school day funtions, but had ALOT of interest when it came to playing a nintendo gameboy.. so when he got home i would start to ask YES OR NO questions.. like,, "do you want some orange juice, yes or no?" and ask till i got the yes or no response.. then "doyou want to pay gameboy? yes or no?" and wait.. yes or no was the BIG one at first,,but it opened up a HUGE line of communication for us. now we are able to ask questions and get a response to not only yes or no, but good or bad, happy or sad, fun or boring, clean or dirty, alot or alittle, and a much more.. the key with us was to make sure you SAY the choice of answers with the question.. he has even asked us questions now and will say yes or no afterwards.. we dont have to say it everytime anymore with some of the basics.. but try to start with asking about things he has alot of interest in,..im now able to ask my son.. "did you have fun at school today?" and sometimes can even ask "what do you want to eat?"! instead of running down the list of appropriate foods with yes or no after. i know that this isnt going to help everyone... it may or maynot help you with your child's friend's parents situation as although autism tends to show the same nasty signs, the children affected seem so different from each other displaying similar yet such a wide variety of issues..

Yes, I do know of things to help an autistic child. Please go to http://www.autism-recoveredchildren.org and see thew window meadia player story about Slater's recovery from autism.

What would help is speech and occupational therapy. It needs to be individulised.

It depends on how autistic they are. Some children benefit well from pictures. You tell the child what the picture is (for example: a picture of an apple) and have them point to that picture when they want an apple, then tell them what it is. Or, to allow them freedom of choice, (lets use lunch time as an example) have a large piece of cardboard with pictures of things on it that they may have for lunch. Apple juice, milk, sandwich, french fries. Show them the card and tell them the names of all the things, then have them point to what they would like to eat.. as they point to each thing, make sure to say it a few times. 'You picked juice, would you like to have juice? Juice is a good choice. I'm glad you chose juice." It will take some time, but non-verbal autistc's have had a success rate of 5 words a year with this program. Good luck.

This morning on the view they were talking about autistic children and they gave a bunch of different groups. I'm sure if you went on their website they would have them listed!!!