communication

[Guest guest]

Hi,

My name is Lizzie. I work in a school for autistic children based in

London, Uk. I have been working with one child with dual diagnosis

for over a year now and I really want to get some advice from you all

particularly in relation to communication. I'd really just like to

hear your stories about how your children have learnt or are learning

to communicate. Did you have to try different forms

(makaton/pecs etc) before you found one that worked? What kind of

oral motor difficulties have you faced? Sorry, lots of questions,

basically any information you have will be useful. I also wanted to

know whether any of your children have done the Sonrise programme and

if so what your experience of this has been and how did it help you

child.

I really love reading your messages. You are all so cheerful depsite

the difficulties you must sometimes face. It's great to have this

support network.

Lizzie

[Guest guest]

im not sure i could remember all the stuff we tried, mainly we did pictures

in combination with with speech and sign language, when he started talking on

his own around 9yrs old he started dropping the signs he still does them when

around people he doesnt know or especially for his food items, but mainly

does talk but due to his speech unlegiability has graduated to a

" springboard " its like a dynavox if your familiar with them anyways, uses

pictures or

pics wit words or just words or you can type in 4 or 8 or 15 or 32 pic frames

with recorded messages instead of the computer generated voice as dynavox does

as nathan has echolalia horribly so hence the reason we went with

springboard, but we worked up to this point, with just regualr pics and adding

pecs pics

and words, computalk, and voice pal, gotalk, etc . im not sure if this

really hleps, but his is the place for loads of great info for ds/autism.

shawna

[Guest guest]

Lizzie,

First of all, it's nice to see that therapists are listening, too!

My daughter is 7, and has always liked to vocalize. However, progress

with talking has been extremely slow. They diagnosed autism in April,

and over the months during the diagnosis process were using the ABA

program with her. That helped enormously in determining where her

communication problem lie. She would be, for example, told to put a

block in a basket, several times in a row. At first, the teacher had

to do it with her, hand over hand, while using the verbal cue. After

many weeks, she had it down with verbal prompt only. The same was

true for stacking two blocks. Then, after 6 weeks of only one of the

two activities per 15 min session, the teacher started randomly

requesting " stacking " or " putting. " Ellen could not handle the

unexpected verbal cues and would try to do the first instruction over

and over, but when randomly shown the picture cue, would get it right

every time.

That triggered her teachers and therapists to start pecs, which has

been very successful - she talks as she points to signs. I think her

communication problems arise more from some miswiring in her brain (if

you will) than from oral motor issues, although those aren't absent.

She has lately gotten a little worse in that she's stuttering

sometimes (saying " Mickadeedeedee " instead of " Mickey Mouse, " for

example), and in terms of dealing with frustration. I guess we're in

a regression phase, and hope it doesn't last too long. In terms

of oral motor stuff, it might help that we've always focused on

strengthening her facial muscles (like feeding her milkshakes in

straws or making faces, for example). And now we use an electric

toothbrush with her (that was a struggle, but we did it to try to get

her used to the dentist - I figure it has benefits in both dental care

and oral sensory issues).

I think another thing that has helped is a more structured environment

at home - we don't let her have more than 1-2 toys at a time, which a)

prevents her from digressing into stereotypic behavior, and has

helped us teach her to communicate when she is finished with one thing

and wants something else. She also likes music, and this summer

learned her ABC's and the sounds they make from a Leap Frog video,

" The Letter Factory, " which has a song woven through the movie about

" The A says aah, The B says buh, " and so on.

Sorry - I probably made this too long, but those techniques have been

the most useful to us so far in getting her to talk (and hopefully

read). I'm anxious to look into the other techniques you mentioned -

I haven't heard of them before. Thank you for all your hard work with

these kids - we need more people like you!

Best,

>

> Hi,

>

> My name is Lizzie. I work in a school for autistic children based in

> London, Uk. I have been working with one child with dual diagnosis

> for over a year now and I really want to get some advice from you all

> particularly in relation to communication. I'd really just like to

> hear your stories about how your children have learnt or are learning

> to communicate. Did you have to try different forms

> (makaton/pecs etc) before you found one that worked? What kind of

> oral motor difficulties have you faced? Sorry, lots of questions,

> basically any information you have will be useful. I also wanted to

> know whether any of your children have done the Sonrise programme and

> if so what your experience of this has been and how did it help you

> child.

>

> I really love reading your messages. You are all so cheerful depsite

> the difficulties you must sometimes face. It's great to have this

> support network.

>

> Lizzie