Helping with speech and motor skills when she has autism

[Hieveryone18]

Hi my daughter is under 2 so has not yet been diagnosed with ASD yet. She is basically non verbal and can not clap (well very very rare) waves sometimes but never points. Please let me how your children are getting on and do you have any advice on what I can do to either improve speech and motor skills. They say early intervention is key but then they take so long to get diagnosed. Many thanks

Can you self-refer or ask to be referred to a paediatric sensory OT to assess her motor skills and sensory needs?

There's a book by the founder of Pivotal response therapy 'Overcoming autism' which would tell you a lot about it, there's actually a youtube clip of the founder on a supernanny program demonstrating it. A similar book is The Verbal Behaviour approach which is another ABA approach.

We found a speech therapist who works with pre-schoolers really helpful, that and lots of nursery rhymes oh and the speech therapy website teachmetotalk is fantastic, it has a checklist of 11 things your pre-verbal toddler needs to have done before talking, and suggestions on how to engage, play with and teach at the right level. For example it talks about teaching receptive language and understanding.

Thank you so much for your wonderful help and advice

It's worth checking if you can self refer to speech and language therapy in your area (in our area they actually run drop in nearly every day somewhere in the Borough - not diagnostic but you can at least get some advice). Also see if there is a Portage service.

In the meantime the Walkie Talkie Speech and Language channel on YouTube has some nice videos on ways to encourage speech, turn taking, engagement and all that good stuff.

Thank I look into this

I would really recommend portage. Our worker essentially did play therapy to encourage interaction and engagement (an essential foundation for speech). However in our area they stopped at age 3 and there was a 7 month waiting list so we only got 6 weeks therapy. It's therefore really worth inquiring early.

We have found the NHS speech & language service pretty useless so far, so don't pin all your hopes on this. There was an 8 month waiting list and then we have only been seen about 4 times in the last 2 years, each of which is mainly an evaluation session with no actual therapy provided (beyond useless suggestions which DS is long past - they just don't believe me as to his abilities, and he does not co-operate in the 45 minute session with a complete stranger).

However we have found a private speech therapist (just from googling and looking for someone with experience of autism) who is fab and sees him fortnightly.

Thank you, I did wonder if that would be the case with the nhs so I have been looking around for other options. Like you say any child is not really going to respond to a stranger and that’s no where near enough sessions. Hope your DS is improving. Can I just ask do you think fortnightly is enough?

Hi there, yes for us fortnightly is enough. The speech therapist shows us techniques to keep practising in the meantime and her session gives DS a bit of a boost. We have seen definite improvements since starting after Christmas. Its important to find someone you click with. Our therapist really understands DS.

We haven't gone down the ABA route which I understand requires a lot more hours intense application per week. Do be aware that this is controversial in some quarters, particularly I believe over how it used to be done in the past, although I have heard many people say it works wonders.

Personally I particularly liked Stanley Greenspan's book "Engaging Autism" on techniques to engage a child. The teachmetotalk website is also very good.

Portage should be able to help signpost you to other services.

Best of luck. Every child is different, but mine did wave and point eventually. He's 4 now and still has no expressive speech but is absolutely delightful and communicates in other ways.