Kids with autism, whether they start talking when they're two or four or eight, often have
really problematic articulation that don't always follow the typically developing rules.
Their articulation can be really difficult to understand.
So today I'm going to discuss articulation issues and what, uh, my system is to help
kids talk more clearly.
Hi, I'm doctor Mary Barbera from Mary barbera.com.
Each week I provide parents and professionals just like you with some of my ideas about
turning autism around.
So if you haven't subscribed to my youtube channel, I hope you'll do that now.
A few months ago, I also started a weekly turn autism around podcast, so you can check
that out at marybarbera.com forward slash podcast too or just search turn autism around
on iTunes.
I have several podcast episodes about language you may want to check those out.
So before we get started with today's topic of articulation, I just want to give a disclaimer.
I'm not a speech pathologist.
I am a behavior analyst and the author of the verbal behavior approach.
And I have worked collaboratively with lots of speech pathologists over the past two decades.
First with my son and then with many of my clients to, um, help me to understand articulation
better, but I'm certainly not an expert, but I do want to give you some tips about things
that you can do just to help kids speak more clearly and how to collaborate for kids with
really troublesome articulation.
Many young children when they first learn to talk, have poor articulation.
Their words are not clear and they may have trouble saying a certain continents like R’s
or F's or blends, especially such as “sh” or “bl”.
So words with continents and blends may be really hard for parents to understand.
This is completely normal for typically developing kids to have certain continents and blends
come in later.
Now in chapter six of my book, the verbal behavior approach, I have a whole chapter
on non-vocal to vocal, um, getting kids from not talking to talking.
And I in there in chapter six, I briefly, uh, address articulation issues that I faced
with my son Lucas and with other kids early in my career.
And in 2003 I've talked about this before in my video blogs and my podcast, I started
my first position as a behavior analyst with the Pennsylvania verbal behavior project.
And I was in classrooms, met multiple classrooms working, uh, eventually with hundreds of kids,
um, consulting with their teachers and their team to help them improve.
And we, uh, I remember back in one of my first classroom visits, uh, that first year in 2003
I was working with a particular teacher.
I can still picture this, this child, I don't remember his name and even if I did, I wouldn't
be able to disclose it, but let's just call him Ron for instance.
Okay.
So Ron was an eight year old who had some verbal language, vocal language, and he was
going through mixed VB sessions, if you will.
So the teacher was saying, touch the banana.
He, she was holding up, you know, uh, a cup and saying, what's this called?
And she was doing mixed VB.
She might be doing imitation, touch your head, touch your body parts.
And I was observing her teaching session.
And what I found with Ron as well as many, many other children, but I can clearly visualize
this, this eight year old Ron, is that his articulation was okay for single cell syllable,
may be multiple syllable words, like two syllable words.
So he was okay with like cup spoon, maybe spoon, I'm not sure.
Cat, dog, pig, eyes, ears, you know, those one syllable words, car, shoe.
Um, they were clear.
And then maybe some of the two syllable words like Mama or mommy or tractor, maybe, you
know, there were, there were some two syllable words that he was also clear with, but there
were some words that were completely not understandable.
I remember bulldozer and dinosaur, so it might sound like, you know, he, she might say, what's
this?
And he’d say cup.
And I could hear that.
I could, I, if I, my back was turned, I would know that that was cup if I didn't see the
picture.
Um, but then when she'd hold up bulldozer, I'd be like bulldozer.
And so like that's not clear.
Dinosaur The, you know, may be a little clearer than bulldozer, but you get the idea.
So in essence, while she was working on him labeling, he was practicing errors.
He was labeling, he was getting credit for correct responses, but they were completely
not understandable.
What I did in this classroom is I came up with my number one, number two and number
three words system.
And that is outlined in my book the verbal behavior approach in chapter six if you own
the book.
But since then, because my book is more than a decade old and it was published in 2007.
So since then I have made my system even more clear by um, eliminating the number three
words.
But let's talk about the number one, two, and three system because I think this is helpful.
Um, there's many parts of the world where there's not a speech pathologist available.
You're might be on a waiting list.
Um, and there needs to be a lot of collaboration between everybody on the team, especially
the parents.
So let me just go over my general system and it might help you to, uh, help a student or
your own child more so.
So, number one words are our words that are clear to a stranger.
Or if a person had their back turned and was holding up pictures, they'd be able to understand
what the child was saying without looking at what the picture was.
So number one, words are more likely to be one syllable words.
I did a video blog on this.
Uh, I think it's called the number one way to get your child talking.
I did a video blog on that so you may want to check that out, but number one, words are
usually one, maybe two syllables in length, and they are clear.
Number two words are missing a part.
So some kids drop off the ending.
So instead of saying car, they might say ca and so it's close, but we're missing an end.
Or some kids put a Schwa ending, an a ending.
So my son used to do this, which is in my book in chapter six.
He used to just, if I'd hold up cup at one point he was saying, cuppa, Cuppa.
And that's because we were overemphasizing, we were saying say cup and we were adding
like a little a sound.
And so one the way we got rid of that, which is in my book is to not emphasize that ending,
but something in the number two words is missing or messed up.
But generally it's close.
And then number three words are, there's a lot going on with the word.
It's three syllables.
It's has R’s and blends and, and those sorts of words can be used to work on receptive
id like touch the dinosaur.
But we shouldn't be practicing completely are unintelligible words.
So number three words are off the charts.
And that's where I simplified my version over the years is now I just go with number one
and number two words.
One are words that are clear with to a stranger or with your back turned.
And number two words are close but not great.
And what I've learned over the years a lot from, from uh, other speech pathologists who,
there's a few, there's several dozens, hundreds of speech pathologists that are also behavior
analysts.
I did a podcast episode with Rose Griffin, uh, episode number 10, which is, uh, she's
both, she's a SLP for many years and then she's a BCBA for several years as well.
So I learned from people like Rose Griffin, but also people like, um, Dr Barbara Esch,
who is, is just wonderful if you ever have the chance to hear her speak.
But she basically says we shouldn't be focusing on words.
We should be focusing on syllables.
And that kids who are starting to learn to talk or talk more, that have autism often
have really, uh, just a lot of errors that we need more practice on the good words.
And so that's why I really encourage teams, parents, and professionals to get number one
words on a list, preferably an alphabetized list, such as an excel sheet or a Google sheet
where you can alphabetize them.
And so the number one words, we know the number two words we know and we know what's missing
from that word or how it sounds right this second.
And then it's super important to keep kids, number one words, really fluid.
So with water in my book I talk about how Lucas could say water and then all of a sudden
he was saying warer and I didn't know how to fix it.
And so when he'd say warer or water, I would give him water.
So if he says warer and I give him water, it reinforces the warer instead of trying
to shape up that water.
There's just all kinds of ways to try to keep the bar high.
And one of the major ways is for everybody to know what a number one word is for this
particular child and what a number two word is, and to work with a speech pathologist
if at all possible on the number two words to try to get them shaped up.
I recommend printing out this form, having it in the child's binder on the front, having
it on the refrigerator at home and moving those number two words over as we get those
mastered into the number one words.
So, um, I've had a lot of success with this little, uh, poor man's articulation program,
if you will.
It's just a really common sense way to try to improve articulation.
And the most important thing is that everybody work as a team.
Uh, because language happens all the time, not just for an hour a week or, um, a half
an hour a day.
We want to be making sure that everybody knows what the words are that the child can say
and to work on improving those.
Um, all the time.
In general.
In summary, parents and professionals, school teams need to be on the same page and keep
the bar really high for the number one words and uh move those number two words over as
quickly as possible.
Improving articulation requires this major team effort.
So I hope that this short video blog has helped you to begin thinking about how you might
be able to identify number one and number two words and work together to get those words
clear.
Wherever you're watching this, leave me a comment, give me a thumbs up and share this
video with others who might benefit.
And for more information.
Um, and to sign up for our free online workshop, go to Mary barbera.com forward slash workshop
and I'll see you right here next week.