One of the defining signs of autism is difficulty with communication. How do you
teach an autistic child to talk? I've got a specialist here today with some
specific strategies. I'm here today with Kristen
Wilson. Welcome to Live on Purpose TV. Thank you. Kristen, you've been here
before for some discussions about autism, the autistic spectrum. You work with kids
in an educational setting mostly- right as an administrator of Spectrum Academy
and as a speech-language pathologist -and a behavior analyst- behaviors.
I'm doing the math and I'm thinking who better to talk to us about how to teach
autistic children to speak because this is one of the indicators of autism,
communication deficits or speech and it's not even speech as much as
communication. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe you can clarify some of that for
us but... Yeah you bet. Better tell us about this. You bet. First of all, we just you
know, disclaimer - every child is different mm-hmm and what they need in terms of
building a language or communication system is going to be widely different
right? Yes and my first piece of advice would be if you're worried about it, seek
out an evaluation. Whether that's through your school district or a private speech
pathologist or a private behavior analyst company. Seek an evaluation by a
professional. Now, this could be true of children of any age, true? Absolutely.
Normally, parents for example, are going to start being concerned about this at a
very young age, they notice that their children aren't meeting certain
developmental milestones - right. They're not having eye contact or they're not
developing those speech and pre speech sounds as we would expect. So our
evaluations available for even young children and
that pre-linguistic phase? Yeah, absolutely. As a speech pathologist, we
can begin treating in a NICU if - oh okay - if we know that there are issues...
Right, we have a preemie maybe we start with some feeding and swallowing
and moving the muscles - okay and then yeah, up to any age. So get a professional
on board. Let's see what's going on because every kid as you said is
different - right and even on the autistic spectrum, there's higher
functioning and there's lower functioning and everything in betw -een
right. So you want to get a good sense of where we are and then that's going to guide
what we can do. Absolutely. Probably there are some things that we could do anyway-
yeah - regardless of what we find out right? Right - okay, kind of have a big
3 for you. Oh wonderful. In terms of that. Bring it. Okay, so especially for
parents who were wondering what on earth can I be doing at home? My child isn't
communicating with us and I have no idea where to start?
Yes - one of the places I love to start, I'm going to save the best for last. One of
my favorite things is sign language. Oh yeah, almost everybody has that available
to them. If you have hands, you can do that and it's easy for parents or prompt
a child to make those signs. Which may be easier than all of the complex responses
that need to happen to produce speech. Absolutely - okay - absolutely. It also
reduces that frustration factor. So when we have kids they can't get their needs
met, then we're seeing meltdowns and tantrums
and terrible behaviors because they can't communicate. Sign language gives
them a way to quickly communicate a need. Okay and do you see I'm picturing this
Kristen especially with a younger child who may be on the
spectrum. They're having communication issues but they clearly
want something. They want a cookie. So I think sign language of cookies is - yeah cookie. Why
do I know that? It's useful sign, okay? Alright
but then you also model this speech along with it - absolutely - not just the
sign, right? Okay - always modeling, good speech, yeah, very important. The other tip
that I have with sign language is to make it specific. So teaching your child
to find cookie is a lot more specific than please - alright. So a lot of people
start with more or please - hmmm please what? Yeah right. If it's 2 a.m.
and your child is screaming and they're signing "please" - like please what? Yeah -but
if they're signing milk - okay - then you know that they're thirsty - right.
Yeah, okay - and you can google and find these basic signs anywhere now which is
really awesome. So you don't have to be fluent in sign
language already - you sure don't. You get to learn that along with your child.
Right - okay and they're just developing language so you're just talking about
single words. We're not doing big, complicated sentences. Okay, awesome. What
other tips would help with the developing that communication? I'm
picturing for example that the sign language is helpful because it gives
them something physical to do. It's also very visual but there's other visual
cues that we might be able to add. Yeah, absolutely.
Kids with autism respond really well to pictures and visuals that they can see
that help them understand and organize their world. so this could work in a
couple of ways. For example, I had a client who was taking swimming lessons
during the summer and was used to the routine of putting on the swimsuit, we go
to the car, we drive to the pool. Well, one day,
they put on the swimsuit, got in the car and drove a different direction and he
had a complete meltdown - right -changing routine - right and all they did was go to a hotel
to swim with grandma and grandpa but he didn't know that's what was happening. So
I encouraged mom to get some pictures and either put them in a little book or put
them on an iPad where you can swipe through and show him swimsuit, car, hotel,
grandpa. Okay and give him an idea of what's coming and when she started doing that,
significantly reduced tantrums that he was having when they were leaving the
house - and again, coupling that because we're talking about how do we
encourage them to speak or to talk- right. So you're coupling the pictures with
modeling of the appropriate language or speech that goes with it - right,
absolutely. What I have that mom deal with kind of
what we call receptive language. Understanding language and then those
pictures are there to help him maybe point and use his own expressive
language - okay. Those two words, I'm familiar with those because of my own
training but expressive and receptive, they're fairly self-explanatory.
Yeah - expressive is where you're initiating and trying to communicate
something or receptive is where you're receiving and right and your
understanding - right- what's being communicated - absolutely. And some of our kids with
autism, go on from there from may be pointing at pictures to even using some
kind of technology to point to pictures that then say the word for them and they
can spell out a sentence or something like that.
We call it augmentative or assistive communication and which is a lot more
common now - right - for some kids and even adults with disabilities that's
their voice - right. Very nice. My third tip, my kind of biggest and most favorite tip
for parents who are trying to get their kids to learn to talk is to teach them
what we call in behavior world "mands". Mands - mands that's a fancy word
for a "request" - oh - yeah - okay like demands or commands - yeah.
"Mands - yep. Alright, tell us about that. Okay, so the most reinforcing thing for a
child will be to get their need met - right. We're going to see those tantrums
when they can't access whatever it is that they want, right? Teaching them to
request what they want, again using those methods that we talked about, maybe sign
language, maybe talking, maybe visuals, teach them to ask for what it is that
they need and again, being very specific. So we can set up the environment to make
those mands, requests more enticing, more valuable to that child.
So maybe cookies are never on the bottom shelf of the pantry. They're always in a
sealed container on the top shelf. So that child learns that they have to ask
for cookie to get the cookie and that has to be the way that they can get it -
exactly - right, having... Whatever they're capable of. So you're not going torequire
full on speech necessarily but whatever way they can ask for that cookie is the
way that they get it - absolutely. And at the beginning, it might be you prompting
them or helping them to ask for it appropriately - right and
giving them what they asked for - nice. Thank you, Kristen. Wow, her experience is
so valuable. If you have found this helpful, please share this with someone
that you know would benefit.
I saw standing in the...