Learning to read, speech delay and the visual learner.

[TotalChaos]

You may all think I'm nuts, but I'm interested in trying to do some early literacy stuff with DS (3.11), as I think having severely delayed language is going to make his life difficult enough as it is when he starts reception. I've found that he can recognise some letters - but only in "Ay/Bee/Cee" terms - when I tried teaching him the phonic letter sounds, they all seem to blend into one generic "muh" sound. I am wondering whether visual learners might do better with whole word recognition rather than phonics. Anyone got any views/advice/slaps with a wet fish to offer?

People think I'm mad too as I'm trying to teach my DS to read, when he is severely speech delayed. But who knows what aspect of learning will feed back into speech, it just might help? I'm using the nice lady sounding out phonic letters on the extras of the Jolly phonics DVD, and he has learned 10 letters in 2 months! It is expensive, but there are books and flash cards with exactly the same kind of letters and so far it is working well. I think that thing about autistic kids being visual learners is one of those truisms which all the so-called experts will now present to you as if it's fact, but surely there are as many different kind of autistic learning styles as there are autistic kids?. It used to drive me mad when DS's school would insist on showing him a picture of a boy taking his coat off, when he was quite capable of understanding the instruction "take your coat off". Every single expert in the field of autism will shove visual prompts, makaton, PECs and visual timetables at you, but my stubborn view was that I wanted to try words first. I asked them once: what's the point of showing him the sign of the boy putting his coat on, when he understands the words? They said : it helps make the action more concrete in his brain. Oh really, I said politely, but bxxxxxxs is what I thought, you just made that up! Sorry if I'm offending anyone whose DS does learn visually, and of course my DS is learning his letters visually via a DVD, but I think it's just not right to generalise about autistic kids with blanket statements like "they learn visually". Our children are all so different. Anyway, that's my rant over!

Rather worryingly I've been reading quite a bit of govt policy today which states that 'autistic children learn visually' as being the absolute truth. It probably is true for many but not all. I'm going to look into the evidence base for it when I get time- and the research that is coming out now that shows that many non-verbal children do not learn visually.

oh dear seem to have opened up a can of worms interesting debate by my thread wording! it's a pity that the visual learning thing seems to have been mindless assumed as applicable to all kids - though I do think it's correct to an extent with my DS.

amam - DS has benefited from having PECs shoved at him - using them primarily to help with word retrieval and get him to build sentences, mind, rather than to explain instructions. So I can sort of see their point, if they were wanting him to start using the words. and PMSL at bugger Coppertop!

Oh yes, we have had it up to here with the "he must be a visual learner" thing and the visual timetables, which might have been handy if I'd known about them when he was 2 but are clearly well past their sell-by now. We were even told we had to use visual timetables by a SALT who had never actually met DS.

I suppose its something SALTs etc can shove at parents from afar - without actually having to do any hands on work with the child

We have also had visual timetables hurled at us from all directions - DS2 takes not a bit of notice of them! However he responds extremely well to us telling him 'First this, then this'. Maybe he is an auditory learner? He's good at matching pictures and although he can't read he can pick out videos when they're out of their boxes - so he must be able to recognise the patterns of words iyswim.

Yurt - how come auditory learners are often non-verbal? I would have thought they would have found it easier to learn speech.

Coppertop - we have the phonics bus now and both my boys love playing with it for different reasons. DS1 learnt his letters with the phonics desk, though. Still V-tech, but much better sound quality and I think it's Justin Fletcher doing all the talky stuff. DS2 is just beginning to work out how some of the games work at about the same age as DS1 did, but he makes me press the buttons!

yeah weird isn't it sphil. Will see if I can find the research (although not tonight- am too tired and have yet to eat). It was very definitely that way round though.

Will be v interested when you have time - thanks. Ds2 picks up some things SO quickly and others he really struggles with. It would be v useful to establish what kind of learner he is. We are having huge difficulties with recognising/naming people atm - in real life and in photos. He has no problem with recognising characters. I wonder if it's a visual problem - that a photo is harder for him to process than a picture?

Sorry - have rather gone off the point of the OP

"how come auditory learners are often non-verbal?"
This is just a theory, so probably completely b*cks, but I've said before that there are frequent occasions (ie every day, but not all of the day) when speaking is impossible for me. Initiating talking, either to start a conversation or to ask for something is very hard. Once I do start talking, especially if there's just one person, then things are ok and if it's a subject I'm well aware of I can rattle on like nobody's business. But so often I have the words in my mind but it's as though there is a locked door between my mind and my mouth. I have perfect understanding most of the time, just can't get the words out when I am having difficulties. It's nowt to do with shyness, I struggle even with my DH and I have clear memories of it happening as a very young child and being unable to even physically respond, thus probably giving the impression I didn't understand the question or comment put to me.
So I wonder with some non verbal people, if they experience a more extreme aspect of what I've described. Whereas I can usually speak if someone speaks first, or if I give myself enough time, some people who are non verbal may have complete understanding, but be unable to express this verbally, due to the difficulties getting the words from the mind to the mouth.

That sounds similar to something that i have read from many non-verbal people. Or even people who use typing but can't initate the movement to type without a prompt.

I'll dig out the study soon- it was something to do with responses to stimuli...... But will take me a while to find.

No need to apologise Sphil, I have done similar myself to other people's threads on here.

It's interesting - I think SALT is right about DS being a visual learner, but DS also responds well to - first X, then Y. So I guess that it's not always as straightforward as the books make out.

Hope you dont mind me jumping in without wisdom to add! This thread is interesting.
Forgive my ignorance but what is a letter board? Is it the wooden strip to line chunky letters on to make words? Ds is 8 and just about recognises most letters on a good day, but doesnt understand order yet - ie he is quite happy to write the letters of his name reversed or mixed up or not in a line. I think he is a visual learner but he cannot reproduce shape or patterns yet -he gets lost trying to draw a triangle or square so I suppose its not supprizing letters are so challenging! Is there something else I should be doing? I have tried whole word labelling ( Mum dad, ds, etc).
By the way back to your previous comments ds at 5 (profound speech delay- but some unclear speech) used to have nightmares with very vivid speech echoing back phrases from the day with impersonator like accuracy! I guess this suggest a central difficulty in speech production!

Bullet - your comment about a locked door between the brain and the mouth is so apt. DS2 knows I'm Mummy - I'm one of the few people he can pick out and label in a photo. But yesterday when I went to pick him up from school one of the TAs (a lovely lady who he gets on very well with) said to him very kindly and naturally 'Who's this, DS2?' and he couldn't answer. It was just as if he couldn't summon the word. This sort of thing happens ALL the time and it means that teaching him to speak is a very very slow process and one I'm not even sure we should be hammering as much as we are (am just about to start another thread on this).

This is a very interesting discussion which has given me a lot to think about. My DS is fairly visual in that he can recognise photos of me and daddy and he can even point out people on TV who he thinks look vaguely like us ( sadly no one very flattering but you can see the resemblance). I realised early on that he could memorise street layouts in unfamiliar towns very quickly - this was long before we suspected ASD so we just thought he was clever. When he was about 2, I got lost in town we were visiting but all I had to say to him was 'station' and we were back there at the speed of light. However he did not take to PECS and now that he is (minimally) verbal, I wouldn't really want to go down this route now as he is capable of understanding and using language although at a very basic level. The professor who diagnosed my son thought I might have spectrum tendencies as I taught myself to read when I was three. I remember learning to recognise whole word shapes and I did not really know the alphabet until I was much older. But I don't think I was hyperlexic really because I did it to follow the story and the characters which is not so ASD.

Bullet - your comments as ever are SO interesting and revealing and I think it's a rare treat for us to have someone on here who was/is on the spectrum and can actually verbalise what our DC might be going through. Thank you! I have often thought that there is a problem with my DS getting his brain to make his mouth move, as if the message gets stuck somewhere in between. I am falling out a bit with my VB supervisor about this, and may print off your comment to show him. He thinks if my DS does not answer a question like "who's that" (photo of mummy) straight away, we should prompt him. But I say that he needs time to "switch his brain on", then move the brainwave from head to mouth, iykwim. If you give him 5 seconds, he will retrieve the word, whereas my ABA tutor always steps in and prompts, as ABA are a bit over the top about "errorless " learning. I think my DS sounds very like yours, sphil, as he sometimes can't summon (exactly the right phrase you used) a word that he knows very well, plus his pronunciation is poor. I've read a lot of US sites and reckon he has verbal dyspraxia as well as autism, but the problem is a lot of SALTS over here aren't as up to speed on it as in the US. Interesting thread!

Oh, that's EXACTLY like us Ama. You definitely need to give DS2 processing time - but there's this VB rule about mastered = fast and fluent. It's very hard to know when to prompt and when not to.

Agree Sphil -I've also found that if you give him 5 seconds and make him touch point the object/pic, somehow the act of touching gets his brain to produce the word. Am a bit pxxxx off with my VB supervisor for being so inflexible tbh! Why does everyone think they know it all about autism, when it's such a wide wide spectrum disorder! It's like me saying I know all about Shakespeare, just because I read King Lear at school!

Interesting - at last private SALT session but one, I didn't feel that the SALT was giving DS enough time to respond! Hanen principles (they deal primarily with speech delay, but also crossover into ASD) are very much about giving your child plenty of time to respond, so I usually do that.

magso - letterboards here (and yes I did kind of copy aut2bsafe's name from her, but also from aut2bhome..... )

Hi there. I've just been reading this thread. My dd is 8yrs old and has down's syndrome and is also a visual learner. Not sure whether this is relevant to your children but it might be of some help.When she was young she loved photographs so I made lots of books using photos and key words which were a huge hit with all my children and got my dd reading. It's easy to make books yourself, I used a small file and laminated pictures.Alternatively I've just come across a site in the Down's Syndrome Journal today that seems to let you create reading books using photos. "Look at this page"

Hi ginge, thanks for the post. I use photos (should really use them more!) already to help DS remember names of people/places - so a good idea to try and add some words to it. I looked at the link, but think I am too stingy, so will try a home made equivalent.