Autism and unusual speech characteristics

[AnneMayesR]

His communication skills continue to be horrendous. I know I know this is part of having an ASD. He can carry on conversations about his particular subject of interest and use complete sentences and a decent vocabulary. His social communication skills seem to be getting worse. His peculiar voice charactoristics and speech patterns seem to be deteriorating as vocab and sentence structure improves. Pronounciation of sounds is good.

He does try and talk to people but he has a very unusual voice and speech patterns. He speaks very loudly and sounds like a child of about 3 or 4. He is extremely sweet and innocent and unsophisticated compared to his peers and we love him very much as he is.

I know this sounds cruel and ignorant but when he speaks he sounds very much like someone who is severly mentally retarded and it seems to be getting worse not better. I know that sounds horrible. Is this normal for ASD? Do your children have decent vocabulary and sentence structure but very unusual speech characteristics at the same time?

I am on one because we were at the park today and he tried to show some other children his bike and talk to them. They started laughing the sound of his voice and the stuff he was saying and started shouting "retard" at him. I had to take him home and it was a shame because he was having a really good time. When he starts talking to other kids they usual just start laughing at him. I could wring their little necks.

This child had a possible head injury (blow to the head from moving debris) due to a car accident when he was a few weeks old. I always wondered if he acquired a brain injury that was specific to the part of the brain that controls speech and language and that he is not really asd. The paed says not. They won't give him a CT head scan. I guess I sound like I am in denial.

After the car accident his head was only slightly bruised and he showed no unusual symptoms and he was discharged from hospital without further investigation.

Any ideas? Thanks to anyone who read this far!! I hate being so longwinded.

Um. Here is the first part of my original post that was left off:

I would like to hear from mums of children with ASD.

My son has an ASD. He initially had a signifigant delay in communication skills which was picked up on in pre-school. Speech therapy improved his grammar and his ability to talk in sentences. He is now 7 years old and doing well academically in mainstream school. His reading and math skills are advanced and he is wonderful at mental maths.

Is it that his social communication skills are getting worse or is it just that as he gets older the differences between your ds and his peers are becoming more noticeable? I ask because I can vaguely remember the SALT telling me that 7yrs is one of those milestone ages with ASD when problems with social skills start to seem more obvious and that it's a common age for parents to seek extra help.

I have 2 boys with ASD. My 7yr-old has good vocabulary but his language can sound a little odd. He sounds as though he has learned English as a second language using very old books. His language is quite old-fashioned and quirky, eg when describing his PS2 game to me this evening he told me that he had "encountered some villains"and his little sister's nappy apparently has "an odious stench". At other times he sounds a bit more like a 7yr-old. My 4yr-old has always sounded like an old man in a child's body. As ASD covers such a huge spectrum it's highly likely IMHO that other children will sound the opposite, ie younger than they really are.

at the boys calling your ds names. He sounds like a gorgeous little boy.

My Ds2, not actually diagnosed with ASD but definitely many characteristics and also dyspraxia type symptons, has odd speech sounds and talks very loudly often. When he sings all sorts of squeals and changes in volume occur! We were told he had a speech sound disorder when he was younger. I would have thought you could look at speech therapy specifically for speech sounds to help with controlling his voice and speech patterns.

We are also doing an RDI (relationship development intervention) programme - google "RDI connect" for details. This is a parent led therapy which goes back to the beginning of child development and takes the child through all the stages of normal development very slowly until they have mastered them. Typically with an autistic child you might be starting at stages already mastered by an NT 12month old such as feeling reassured by looking at a parent's face across the room. Steve Gutstein who developed this therapy argues that much of ASD speech is meaningless because it does not go hand in hand with other communication methods and certainly I have seen babies communicating better than Ds2 on occasion although he is now 6 and has a reasonable amount of language. Anyway I mention it because it might help your son. However it's quite expensive to get involved in and does require a lot of parental input. Sometimes we find it a real struggle but I am very convinced by the idea and there is recently a publication in the journal "Autism" describing some of their results.

I am sorry to hear what you say about the other kids and your son. It is heartbreaking anything like that and I have trouble not bursting into tears on the spot.

how is his hearing?

He has passed all of his hearing test. Thank you for all of your comments.

too at the boys namecalling