hello and goodbye (poss one for the friendly SALTs?)

[Hamandcheese]

My DS (age 3) has various difficulties that may (or may not) be AS. He has speech therapy focusing on speech sounds, but does also have some social communication problems. He has very advanced receptive and good expressive language.

He will NOT say 'hello' or 'goodbye' to people. It's becoming really obvious, and I was wondering what I can do to encorage him to do so.

Anyone else dealt with this? Any suggestions? Thanks.

[tenalady]

If its any consellation my ds 4.5 wont say hello or goodbye either. No difficulties as such but downright embarrassing.

[SlightlyFamiliarPeachyClair]

Sam won't say hello and goodbye unless forced either- he does have AS, and like your son very good other language aspects.

Social stories?

[2shoes]

dd has cp and when she was younger she would never "say" goodbye and didn't like you saying it

what about signing

[macwoozy]

My ds, who has ASD and is now 6 years old still needs plenty of encouragment to say hello, and when he does actually say it, it sounds very monotone as if he's not pleased at all to see whoever he's greeting. Like peachychair suggested social stories might help, or how about asking his school if they'd be willing to form a small group where he could practise this amongst his classmates.

[emmalou78]

Elijahs a boy of extremes, he's either booming out 'oh heno nere' and waving madly at everyone ever and having to kiss evry person possible when we leave, or is head down and straight ast everyone in/out and away...

Today was teh latter, though outside preschool he did turn and shake his fist at the building and shouted 'go away' very clearly...

[Tiggiwinkle]

My DS (aged 7 and AS) is also reluctant to say hello. He does say it now-although as macwoozy says of her DS, it is not exactly a happy greeting! I have just encouraged him to say hello every time someone says it to him over the years, and he has gradually started doing it.

[sphil]

DS2 will only say goodbye if I say 'Lift your hand into the sky - Give it a wave and say -'
(a la Justin in 'Something Special'.) The only problem recently is that he then has to do his version of the whole song
" 'Appy..you..came...prease come back...prease come back ....gain ". (This will only make sense if you've seen the programme - sorry.)Makes it a bit awkward if you're attempting a quick getaway .

This is a very roundabout way of saying that maybe a 'formula' like this would work with other children? I'm now trying to fade the prompt - so I just say 'Give it a wave and say ----' .

No ideas for 'hello' though - I've tried the same approach using the 'hello' song but he just looks horrified and says 'goodbyegoodbyegoodbye'.

[moondog]

Sphil that is sooooo sweet.

H&C,I really wouldn't worry about it to much.In the list of things to be dealt with it is pretty low down.

(I do find a lot of children are happy saying/signing hello when we sing. You could practice a little simple hello song at home?)

[fattiemumma]

do you have any of those toys where the animals pop up or hide back inside the box or whatever?

maybe you could play with it with your DS and when the animal hides you can say "ooh goodbye" and "HELLO" when it pops up. turn it into a game to enourage him to produce the sounds. then once he gets a little more familiar with them you can try and encourage it with people....like playing peek a boo but with heloo and goodbye.

[Hamandcheese]

Thanks everyone. It may be low down the list, moondog, but it seems so obvious to me. Had some friends over for tea, and I asked hinm afterwards "did you say 'hello, sue?' and he said (with giggles) 'she came towards me and said hello so i ran away'.

I tried playing hello / goodbye peekabo using his younger brother, which worked pretty well. Think I'll try doing that more, and saying hello / goodbye to inanimate things.

Thanks everyone - good to know it's not just us!

Emmalou78: why do they seem at their clearest when they are saying something we would rather come out muffled?