Language vs Speech

[el0fant]

I thought this was an interesting case study of a child learning to communicate without speech. Been lurking here and thought it might be of interest.

Case Study

brilliant - thank you (you don't have access to Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders do you? You may save me an inter library loan or 2 if you do )

I am PMSL @ the little boy looking at everything upside down- ds1 has started doing that- what's all that about?

How interesting. My Ds2 doesn't point much especially at anything in the distance, he also doesn't clap or wave. He has very poor fine and gross motor skills. I have said a number of times to the clinical pyschologist that I think this is probably why he doesn't point (he does ask me to look at things and show joint attention) but she scoffs and says that pointing is a really basic thing and it is because he can't understand the reason to point.

My DS2 also has very unclear speech and problems with visual tracking.

I have to add that my Ds2 was not arranging his alphabet at the age of 2 or showing signs of genius however .

thanks for posting this. I am tempted to send a copy to the clinical pyschologist!

Thanks el0fant - will come back to this one, it looks very interesting but havent got time to read yet.

my dd (about to turn 3)has been non specific"speech delay" but with above average non verbal communication skills, now aged 3 she has just begun to start mimicking words and uses them appropriately straight away
she toilet trained with no speech and knew colours numbers letters and shapes all without any words!
dd now has fine and gross motor delay and severe to moderate visual acuityissues to due to complex sight issue
But she understands EVERYTHING!
there are so many ways to label language and many ways for language and speech disorders to manifest, getting your needs met is pretty clever and dd has shown no frustration either.

This is a great article, very interesting. Shows a lot of recognisable symptoms and hope for non verbal children.

had a proper read of this last night (at 1.30am! ds3 up!!) and found it interesting. The little boy was very like Ds1- who loves looking at angles, loves looking through red acetate- has red glasses , does all the stuff with his hands. He sounded like the son of someone I spoke to the the States on a few occasions, a number of years ago, who was also non-verbal but scored ridiculously hightly on tests. And having read the name again I have a a funny feeling it was her I was talking to- sure she was called MOrton0- will have to check back.

But anyway What struck me as strange though was that his internal language appeared to be verbal. Ds1's isn;t and nor is Lucy Blackman's (mentioned in the last paragraph)- although she can type, she still thinks in images, and if you ever see her inital output you can see it is hard for her to translate into words.

He was like a high functioning ds1/Lucy Blackman.

oh yes it was her! I'll write and ask her about the Lucy Blackman stuff.

I remember she said that she used the trampoline a lot with her son. I