Speech Therapy Ideas for Autistic Children

Given the range of difficulties they experience with communication, it is no surprise that there are a lot of speech therapy ideas for autistic children. Especially when identified and treated at an early age, this can be immensely beneficial in the development of the child into a healthy adult.

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The National Research Council has dictated four goals for speech therapy:

1. Early treatment (in the child's life) and frequent treatment is best.
2. The therapy should be based in practical aspects of the child's life.
3. Spontaneity should be encouraged as communication develops.
4. Each skill should be applicable to multiple situations in the child's life.

Given those goals, the methods of achieving them are quite varied. Some treatment involves going in to see therapists (who should be licensed) while other treatment involves home visits. The latter often is more efficacious as it does not take the child into an unfamiliar environment and therefore more of the focus can be on the speech therapy itself. However, home visits are also far more expensive a method of treatment.

There are several different categories into which speech therapy for autism can be divided. They focus on specific areas of difficulty common to children with ADS.

The use of gestures, body language, and facial expressions to communicate is a vital part of human interaction. Sign language uses all of these and is especially useful with children before the age of three. Another form of non-verbal (or, more aptly, pre-verbal) treatment is "generalized imitation," where the therapist will use their mouth to shape the words, without sound, encouraging the child to imitate the muscle movements.

There are also more technologically sophisticated methods of non-verbal speech therapy. Most notably, perhaps, is the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS). Developed by Pyramid Educational Consultants, the system uses graphics and pictures to facilitate communication. With a focus on the "initiation" part of communication, the system is used for both children and adults with communications problems throughout the world.

The development of vocabulary can also be encouraged with the aid of a slew of technological devices in the category of Augmentative and Alternative Communication. With cues ranging from simple pictures to words (depending on the education of the child) these devices will play the word (pre-recorded) based on input from the operator. There is an entire system of treatment that uses these devices along with the guiding hands of the therapist to encourage the child to instigate the sound. AAC's have become quite easy to implement in a world filled with technology, and this is a very popular form of speech therapy.

Children with ASD often will know how to use language but have difficulty in the back-and-forth nature of actual conversation. Some speech therapy strategies used to develop this skill include Functional Communication Training (FCT) which uses positive reinforcement to encourage conversational interactions. "Story scripts" use short vignettes to teach social skills and provide the child with examples of appropriate communications.

Another difficulty with ASD is the challenge of knowing when conversation, even basic social greetings, are appropriate. Speech pragmatics teaches the child the culturally acceptable social interactions such as "I'm sorry" and other elements of courteous interaction. Peer mentors work on these with autistic children in "normalized" settings. They are trained in techniques and strategies for dealing with the problems that may arise, as well as methods of encouraging interaction. This also falls under the larger bubble of Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), a trademarked program based on the belief that autistic individuals can have authentic emotional connections if they are exposed to them bit by bit, systematically.

Abstract language is something of a challenge for people with autism. Metaphors are taken literally, and concepts such as "many," "freedom," or "fairness." "Story scripts" use short vignettes to teach social skills and provide the child with examples of appropriate communications. Speech therapy will help to build an understanding of these ideas in a way that the autistic child can use in their everyday communication.

These are only a few of the examples of speech therapy that research has shown are effective in treating autistic children. As technology and new methods develop together, there is more and more hope for autistic children and their families to overcome the challenges of communication.

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