Autism- sings not talks

[borisisaprat]

Have almost 4yo waiting to be assessed. He has a great vocabulary but sings lots and doesn't really talk much. He chats a bit with a few small phrases but generally he prefers to sing. He knows his colours shapes animals numbers 1-10 and loads more snd is v intelligent we believe but if u ask him a question like if u have a nice day yea or no he won't answer. Or if u ask him is he tired he won't answer. But then he will be happy to break into song.

Anyone had similar before

Yep. Had the same. He could count say all the shapes and sing all the lion King songs but wouldn't recall his day or tell us if he's happy etc. He's 4.4 now and has had extra support this year. We have been assessed by SALT, OT, Paed, and Ed Psych and have a EHCP. We have some upsides. He now speaks in clear sentences mainly describing scenes in a book or on TV. Pronouns are still confused but are improving and there is a fair amount of ecolalia but it has reduced. He has started to recall his day at school in his own way "Did you do naughty in school?" We also went through a phase of screaming when he didn't get his way. This has reduced as we've been able to negotiate with him but still exists.

At present he receives speech therapy in school some of which is in groups. We had online SALT during lockdown which wasn't very useful.

How was he when he started at school? Did his speech take off once he started school or was it before

He's August born and started school based nursery in September 2020. They raised issues after the first term and we doubled down on him this year. Lots of reading and similar activiites at home e.g. all the Julia Donaldson books. I'd say he made the biggest leap over the summer just gone and is improving now school has started. Some things just happened by themselves. They said he had delays in pre writing skills 6 months ago but now he's drawing basic faces and over the summer he started colouring in.

Our DD is similar but is a bit younger (2.5). Also awaiting assessment. She started singing before she said her first words. Used to sing all day long. She now has a huge vocab of words, same as your DS but no sentences. She has started to use the songs in some kind of context now eg. Sings Christmas songs if she sees a Christmas tree, wheels on the bus if she sees wheels/ car etc. I thought it was a way for her to communicate as she still doesn’t understand language- that’s just my guess though! (her receptive language is improving but still pretty behind- can’t follow most one step instructions etc). We have started private SLT while awaiting NHS sessions and it seems to have really helped her confidence in trying to communicate. X

@Lemongrass1 we are doing speech therapy too and have been for a year. This is with nhs. It has deffo helped she's always impressed with him and so are nursery. My family after they haven't seen him for a few weeks always seem to notice new stuff about him

When he's out and about like yesterday we went to winter wonderland so very new for him. He was so serious and I literally couldn't read his expression. Do u find that too? If we were to go back again it would prob be different

At home he never shuts up Altho lots of it is jibber jabber but when it comes to songs he's very good and knows the words etc and he's very good wuth following instructions also

My daughter sang before she spoke too. She had an incredible repertoire singing anything she had once heard. She still has an incredible knowledge of songs from the 1950s onwards. Once she got to three/four she started speaking more and she had pretty normal speech by the time she was reception age. She still sings, it's a good indicator of her being happy.