I was speaking with our 12-year-old daughter, Erin, last night. We were watching the Golden Globe Awards together. That was a surprise in itself..you see, she does not want much to do with me now since she has become a pre-teen. That is very Neuro-typical of her and a great surprise to me.
While we were watching, Kiernan, our youngest son, came out of his area...a downstairs room he likes to watch television and play on the computer...Kiernan was trying to tell us something and we could not figure it out. Finally, we realized his DVD had stopped and he was having trouble getting back to regular cable.
Erin mentioned how Kiernan is doing well by letting us know what he wants, without words.
I asked Erin if she remembered when she was non-verbal. She started speaking around the age of 4 years old. Before that, she screamed and cried ALL OF THE TIME....
Erin told me..."I WAS SCREAMING TO BE HEARD"!!!
Makes sense to me....
1 comment:
This is why AAC (alternative and augmentative communication) devices, and training in using them, can make all the difference in the world. A "non-verbal" autistic child might not have *expressive* speech... but dollars to donuts they have some degree of *receptive* speech and can understand the speech of others. And dollars to donuts they have the aptitude (and the rote memory!) to learn letters and sounds -- the stuff of preliteracy education. And if they have the ability to point, then voila -- they have what it takes to learn to use a keyboard to communicate. A combination of picture-books and keyboard is a good way to start. Joel Smith at http://thiswayoflife.org has a program which will simulate a text-to-speech device on a Windows XP or newer computer.
We don't do nearly enough in this country to make AAC and training in its use available to all the "non-verbal" people who could benefit from them.
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