( Everyday Life with Autism )

Sometimes we make the assumption that children with ASD wouldn’t be able to understand our regular language which is spoken in full sentences. When I catch myself talking to a student as if I was talking to a colleague of my mine, I would immediately rephrase my previous sentence and turn it into a much shorter and simpler one. In other words I turn it into an “autism-appropriate” language.

To my biggest surprise, some students would come back a day or two later using the vocabulary that I made sure to eleminate from my rephrased sentence. This happens all the time at different levels, with low-functioning as well as with high-functioning kids.

Here is my explanation:

Some children don’t necessarily respond instantaniously to what we say. But that doesn’t mean that they are not receiving anything at their end. If they don’t acknowlege that doesn’t mean they didn’t register or notice what was said to them.

One reason, I believe, is that they need more time to process data (assimilate words and their meanings) before responding to these spoken words. Let’s not forget that a delayed neurological development is another definition of ASD condition.

The other reason, I believe, is that their poor social and communication skills don’t help them keep the conversation going.

Tip

Try to talk to the kids in a full language and see how they respond. Be patient and allow enough time. Start gradually to move from using short telegraphic sentences/statements to more elaborate ones. Expand and elaborate the sentences according to kids’ response. You will be amazed at the amount of vocabulary they pick up in a very natural and casual way.

Anecdote

One student happens to arrive early every morning before his peers show up. I take advantage of these ten or fifteen minutes everyday to hold a conversation with her and talk about a topic she is interested in. One day she decided to give a speech to her classmates, after asking for permission, about school’s rules and the consequences when rules are broken. Everybody was listening in awe. Her fluency and choice of vocabulary was stunning. She kept going on and on until we had to remind her of our daily schedule that we haven’t started yet.

It was so rewarding for me to hear her using words that I’ve used in our conversations days or weeks ago. The good thing about this student that she is curious and always asks for the meaning of words. She just needed some time to assimilate the new vocabulary. Take your cues from the kids.

Luckily the kids can check the meaning of the words on the computer or iPad. I strongly encourage parents and educators to train the kids to look up the meaning of words using the new technology. It is less intimidating than the thick and heavy dictionary we grew up with. Besides, they can also listen to the pronunciation.

However, be careful with the metaphoric and figurative language, since kids with autism are very literal and can get very confused. Using a proverb like : “Put yourself in my shoes.” can create a real problem.

nadia shanab

Tags: autism, communication, consequences, parenting, speech, symptoms of autism, tips