Today we're starting something new, a five part video blog series.
The next five weeks are going to cover five different areas where parents and professionals
of kids with autism get stuck, see little progress, and I'm going to tell you those
areas one at a time.
Today's episode is going to be on how to get a child from non-vocal, not talking, nonverbal
to talking.
And this is an area where people get stuck all the time.
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, Board Certified Behavior Analyst and bestselling
author of The Verbal Behavior Approach.
Each week I provide you with some of my ideas about turning autism around.
This video blog is going to be a short excerpt about an area where parents and professionals
get stuck and see little progress.
And I'm going to provide some tips on how to get unstuck.
So the first place where people get stuck is going from not talking non-vocal, nonverbal,
whatever you want to call it, not talking to talking.
Um, I've seen kids that are, you know, obviously one and two years of age who are not talking,
three and four, but I've also seen, you know, 16 year olds who are, who are not talking.
Um, so talking and communication are two different things, but we're not going to talk about
communication and augmentative communication devices or sign language or anything like
that, which obviously, you know, we want our child to be able to communicate.
But let's just talk about getting a child vocal and um, going from non vocal to vocal
is a big area where people get stuck.
So there is a ton of information about how uh, the procedures I use to get kids talking
in my, in my free online course, uh, uh, free online workshops in my paid online courses.
Um, you can go and see the free workshop which tells you about some of the mistakes people
are making and also gives you some idea about whether the online courses that I offer are
a good fit for you.
So you can find out that at marybarbera.com/workshop.
I cover how to get kids talking both in my toddler course for parents and early intervention
professionals of young children as well as within my early learner course, um, which
is for professionals and parents of kids over five.
So one of the things you want to do, uh, if you have a child that's nonverbal, not vocal,
not talking, is really assess whether that is indeed true.
Most of the time when I go into independent evaluations, which I don't do anymore, but
when I used to do, uh, first time assessments on kids, a lot of times kids were labeled
nonverbal when actually they were saying some things.
They were saying, some sounds, they were saying some word approximations and they had pop
out words, which are just words that they say here and there.
Um, one of the really biggest things that I've done in my courses and my work over the
past decade, um, since I published my book is I really have focused on multiple control
activities.
So my shoe box program for instance, has, um, multiple control.
So it is part mand or requests cause I'm holding up a picture of something that's preferred
and we have established putting things in a shoe box as a reinforcer.
So I might be saying Apple, Apple and the child, say the child does say Apple or some
approximation for Apple.
They are getting the picture to put in the box.
And that response of them saying Apple or close to it is part mand because they want
the picture to put in the box.
It's part tact because they can see the picture.
It's part echo because I'm saying it first and it's part of receptive listener responding
where they're putting the um, the picture in the box if they don't do that on their
own.
So we, we establish lots of mand, tact, echo combinations very quickly with a shoe box
program with potato head, with puzzles, with lots of activities.
And that has really made the difference.
And, uh, one of our course participants in the toddler course just last week, uh, posted
a video of her grandson, uh, saying Apple.
And she literally wrote two weeks prior when she purchased the toddler course, her, her
grandson was completely nonverbal and now he has words.
Um, so it's exciting when I see something like that and when I see and hear about kids
getting vocal or a lot more vocal, um, with these procedures and I know it's possible
and it's possible even if you have an older child, we have a participant, uh a participant
named Anna who joined my online course, um, when her son was eight years old and he was
labeled nonverbal, using a communication device and she got him vocal, um, hundreds of words
now, um, over the past few years.
And um, so it's always possible.
Um, and especially it's possible if your child has any sounds pop out words or word approximations.
If you enjoyed this video blog, I would love it if you would leave me a comment, give me
a thumbs up and wherever you're watching to really find out the best ways where you can
comprehensively, uh, get unstuck is by attending a free online workshop at marybarbera.com/workshop.
And I'll see you right here next week.