Pronoun confusion - any advice?

[luckylady74]

My ds1 has as and is going to be 6yrs soon. His salt is concerned that his speech hasn't progressed at all in the year she's been seeing him at school (termly assessment with advice for teacher and me).
He speaks mainly in questions eg will see someone he knows well and say 'who is it' repeatedly, if he wants to tell me when something is he will ask me when it is and
so on.
The salt mainly wants to focus on his pronoun reversal which has been total since he learned to speak and was the first thing i googled that turned up 'autism' 3 years ago! He has never referred to himself as anything other than 'you' or less frequently, his name. He can't communicate with others because he inevitably addresses them as 'I' and they misunderstand his point eg'What is my name?' means what are you called.
The salt says she has asked colleagues, but they have not done anything with this because it usually changes of it's own accord before this age. The inclusion services women ,who attended his iep meeting ,made my heart sink when she said 'yes but sometimes this never changes'.
I really need some ideas on how to work on this with ds1 - he's started to be really upset about people not understanding him - it's not come up before because he's never attempted interaction with peers/strangers before he started school.
Any ideas re how to convince ds1 he is 'I' gratefully received. So far we have got him to repeat it in games, but he has never independently said it.

I have seen this taught by using a BIG carboard letter I (So he has to be able to identify the letter I) & placing a photo of the child at the top.
So the letter I becomes the body & the photo at the head.
Every time the child referred to herself as You or Emma her mum or teacher held up the I & said who are you? I she would repeat, eventually it stuck?

Not sure if it would help but just an idea!

sounds perfect - he knows I because his name starts with it. Will do that now and will suggest it to teacher at parents eve this week. thanks so much!

I hope it helps, good luck x

We are having the same problem. Ds2 doesn't yet use pronouns in speech but he is having real difficulty in distinguishing them receptively - especially my and your.

It's so frustrating isn't it - I didn't realise how much communication would break down without pronouns!

We had the same problem (DS 4.3, HFA), now mostly resolved (only the occasional mixup between "he" and "she").

SALT advised us to do the following:

1. When you use pronouns, always use the name of the person you refer to immediately afterwards (e.g "I, Mummy).

2. When modelling speech using pronouns, take the child's hand and touch it to the chest of the person to whom the pronoun refers.

We found we had to be careful with the second strategy and make it absolutely clear we were modelling what he should say and not speaking normally (in order not to cause further confusion). We found it worked best if one parent modelled in the course of a verbal interaction with the other parent, preferably positioned behind DS. It invariably caused confusion if I tried to have a conversation with him and at the same time model what he should say.

We also played games along the lines of "throw the ball to me, now I will throw the ball to him, should he throw the ball to me or you". His understanding of pronouns was well ahead of his ability to use them in speech and I think he needed to understand that it matters, in a conversation, who is speaking (understanding that would be intuitive in an NT child) before he could use them in speech.

thank you for that - the ball game exercise is exactly the point he's at - he enjoys turn taking and is a stickler for correct order so that should work! i'm very excited to try this tomorrow. thanks again

I am so glad you posted this luckylady, it is great to see the responses, feel a lot of this could be useful... I sometimes struggle to think how I can help my ds with problems like this.

thanks, great thread.