Will speech help with sensory behaviors? Looking for experiences

[Laylaa123]

Hi everyone,

I’m a mum to a 3.5-year-old little boy who is currently on the pathway to being diagnosed with autism. He attends nursery three times a week for about 6 hours a day, and while there have been some really positive developments, we’re still working through a lot.

He’s a big sensory seeker — loves movement, picking things up, throwing them, and transporting objects from one place to another. If we’re at the park, swings are his absolute favourite, but he’ll also pick up rocks, leaves, or anything he can find just to watch them fall or move them around. It seems to bring him a lot of joy and regulation.

He isn’t potty trained yet, but we’re planning to start soon. He’s also nonverbal at the moment — no words yet, just a lot of bubbling and vocal sounds. The progress he’s made in understanding is really encouraging, though he’s still quite far behind other kids his age.

We’re working with PECS, but he’s not too interested in it so far. I know a lot of his frustration and behaviours come from not being able to communicate his needs yet, and I can see that his overall behaviour is slowly improving as he gets older.

My big question is — for those of you who have been through this — if your child became verbal later on, did their sensory processing settle down a bit? Did their play style or behaviours change once they were able to speak?

I completely understand that every child is different, but I’m just wondering if verbal language helped your child feel more regulated or changed the way they engaged with the world.

I’d love to hear from any other mamas who’ve been through something similar. It would really help to know what to expect or just to hear some real-life experiences.

Thank you!

I don’t have any advice or insights to give. However he sounds very like my grandson was at this age- no words, loved swings, throwing things, dropping pebbles in water, etc. He was 4 before he starting saying any words, but has made enormous progress since. He could put 2-3 words together by the time he started school. He is now 6 and talking in complete sentences (although intonation sounds unusual), asking and answering questions. He continues to enjoy sensory things such as swinging, jumping, bouncing and throwing things. He was toilet trained within a couple of days at just over age 4 - wouldn’t use a potty but happy with toilet with child seat insert. Doing well in mainstream school.

@Greencactusgirl thank you for replying, this gives me hope

All children are different but with autistic children, we never know whether non verbal children can't talk or just choose not to. My dd spoke her first word at just shy of 7 months, and it was a 'proper' word: Laptop (her favourite thing at the time, thanks to Jessie J videos). And then, no single other word, not even babling or mumma, dadda etc for another 5 months until she said 'Peppa Pig' on her first birthday. Then hardly any conversation for years while she had SALT. She is now a teenager and sensory issues are strong in many ways, but she can converse very well with people when she wants to, and always gets As in English, but mostly doesn't want to talk. Her behaviour has changed in detail, but not in type. When she was a toddler, and in nursery, she would play by picking up/dropping, opening/close, switch on/switch off. Now she has extreme OCD, and still switches a phone on/off, folds something, weighs something over and over, often for hours. It's more adult as it's a real phone/oven/front door now, not toys, but the type of repetitive behaviour and the kind of reward she gets from them has stayed the same, if anything, it has become more intense, despite her being able to choose to be exceptionally articulate.