When you have a child with autism or any other developmental disability, one of the biggest obstacles in connecting with them can be a lack of communication. If your child is non-verbal, only somewhat verbal or speaks but has trouble expressing themselves or being understood, the result can be frustration and the emergence of maladaptive behaviors that make life hard on everyone in the family.
It makes sense—if you can’t get what you want or need from a parent or teacher, crying, screaming or being aggressive will be the fallback. But thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.
WORK WITH EXPERTS
“Parents can seek out professionals in the field of applied behavior analysis and speech-language pathology. While behavior analysts and speech-language pathologists may sometimes address communication skills differently, each field has something to offer to support a child’s communication needs,” says Joe Novak, Ed.D., director of clinical content for Autism New Jersey. “The effects of communication intervention are often enhanced when behavior analysts and speech-language pathologists collaborate and when skills are practiced across settings.”
There are several practices that can be effective for increasing communication skills in people with autism, Novak says. These include discrete trial teaching, naturalistic language strategies and functional communication training. In addition to these behavior analytic techniques, there is the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).
Discrete trial teaching is teacher-led and highly structured, while naturalistic language strategies are more child-led and loosely structured. “These techniques are designed to teach a variety of skills, including how to ask for what you want and need, how to label things that you see, hear and feel, and how to respond to questions,” he says.
Functional communication training is designed to help replace challenging behavior with appropriate communication. “Assessments are conducted to understand why the behavior is occurring, and replacement language is taught with the intention that it is used instead of the challenging behavior,” says Novak.
AAC includes a range of tools for communication, ranging from simple printed boards with pictures, to books with exchangeable pictures (the Picture Exchange Communication System, or PECS) to iPads or other touchscreen devices with specialized communication software such as Proloquo2Go. “These tools, when combined with appropriate instructional techniques, can enable effective communication for children who may have limited to no ability to speak or just generally struggle with their ability to express ideas,” he says. “Some students may also experience an increase in their ability to communicate using speech when being taught to use AAC tools.”
EMBRACE COMMUNICATION IN ALL ITS FORMS
At Spectrum360, a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization focused on special education and development for individuals with autism and related disabilities, plans to increase communication might include individual or group sessions with a speech-language therapist, use of a communication system, a speech generating device, American Sign Language or other tools and methods. “It is all individualized to each person we serve,” says Dr. Danielle Taylor, chief operating officer. “We believe that all people can communicate, and it is our job to demonstrate the many different ways of doing so and to assist them in developing a style that suits them best.”
Some of the options used at Spectrum360 include:
Spoken Language including Articulation and Speech Production: “Our experienced speech-language therapists utilize many different intervention techniques when working with students to improve their spoken language abilities, including tactile programs such as PROMPT, shaping and modeling of sounds and vocalizations, and oral motor placement tools,” says Taylor.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): “When a student’s vocal speech is not intelligible, implementing an AAC method is necessary to ensure that students can communicate effectively. AAC includes (but is not limited to) speech generating devices, PECS and American Sign Language.”
Pragmatics: “When a student needs to build their skills with communicating in social situations, we provide opportunities to observe others and practice that include video modeling, role playing and prompting.”
Taylor advises parents to notice which modes of communication are challenging for their child, and which ones they gravitate toward. “Start where you are by noticing what communication methods your child is drawn to—gesturing, speaking, drawing, writing— and encourage them to use these as much as possible in order to communicate what they need and want.”
Once a plan has been created that outlines the kinds of communication your child is working on, encourage them to use those methods and celebrate their successes. Also be sure to provide opportunities for practice at home and in the community.
The Lindamood-Bell Learning Process, which has more than 50 learning centers including a location in Morristown, builds the imagery-language foundation of learning to teach students of all ages to read and comprehend to their potential. For thirty years, their intensive, one-to-one instructional programs have helped to develop language processing to strengthen the sensory-cognitive functions needed for reading and comprehension.
“These sensory-cognitive functions include phonemic awareness for word attack, symbol imagery for word recognition and reading fluency, and concept imagery for comprehension,” says Megan Bowlin, M.A. Ed., center director, Lindamood-Bell Learning Process. “Our programs have also been successful in improving reading and comprehension for individuals with learning challenges including dyslexia, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder.”
The organization’s Visualizing and Verbalizing program develops concept imagery—the ability to create an imagined or imaged gestalt from language—as a basis for comprehension and higher order thinking. The Talkies program (the primer to the Visualizing and Verbalizing program) is designed for students who need simpler, smaller steps of instruction to establish the imagerylanguage connection. The goal is to develop the dual coding of imagery and language as a base for language comprehension and expression. Talkies is especially helpful for students with a limited oral vocabulary and/or limited ability to verbalize and benefits students previously diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Parents interested in learning more about these programs can call the Morristown Learning Center at 976-644-2202.
Whatever method you use, the most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open, Taylor says.
“Talk to your child as you would with their siblings,” she says. “Try to involve them in dinner conversations. Even if they do not actively participate, exposing them to the language is helpful. Our students hear and understand a lot more than we think so be mindful of what you say and discuss in front of them. For example, just because someone does not communicate using spoken language does not mean they don’t understand it.”
—Ronnie Koenig is a lifestyle writer who lives in Princeton with her husband and two kids.
