5 principles of speech therapy that can help children with autism

5 principles of speech therapy that can help children with autism

If your child is diagnosed with autism, speech and language therapy is often one of the first and best treatments recommended by any doctor. Our pathologist will explain how speech therapy can help a child with autism.

Speech therapy can play a key role in treating autism:

This type of communication disorder is common in children diagnosed with autism. Speech and language therapy often plays a key role in early intervention treatment. It is better to refer the children and families from our specialists.

Once children are diagnosed with autism, our professionals will guide them through speech and language therapy to find better improvement in communication and improve their quality of life. With autism, your child has little or no language. Our speech and language therapy team may introduce alternatives to speech, such as: B. signing or the use of technologies that support communication.

How does speech therapy help children with autism?

The main purpose of speech and language therapy is to help children improve their communication. A child with autism is particularly important because communication is a key component to their ability to form relationships and function in their world.

Often speech therapy can help a child with autism:

1. Develop the ability to express their wants and needs

This can be done through verbal and non-verbal communication. Children with autism need to be taught how to share ideas with others.

This is important not only within the family, but also when moving outside the home and building relationships with peers.

2. Understand what is being said to them

Speech and language therapy helps children with autism understand the verbal and nonverbal communication that other people use. It also helps them recognize cues like body language and facial expressions.

Speech therapy can help an autistic child understand how to begin communicating without prompting from others.

3. Communicate to build friendships and interact with peers

Some children with autism may struggle with the spontaneity and unpredictability of occasional conversations. He also has very specific interests and finds it difficult to talk about other things.

Speech and language therapy can teach these children strategies for blending with other children so they can make friends, play, and experience social success.

4. Learn to communicate in a way that other people understand

Sometimes autism in children involves unusual language processing and idiosyncratic learning patterns. As a result, children with autism often have problems developing spoken language. Sometimes they learn spoken language in chunks, without breaking down what they hear into individual words and sounds.

They may repeat long "plays" of favorite stories or television shows without really understanding what they are saying or being able to use any of the words in the "play" independently. This is called “echolalia,” and speech therapy helps children find ways to overcome it and the other difficulties children with autism have when speaking to others.

5. Articulate words and sentences well

Like many neurotypical children, children with autism have difficulty articulating sounds and putting words into sentences. Many children with autism also have great difficulty with concepts of time, abstract language, and vocabulary that depends on the context of meaning.

Non-literal languages ​​such as idioms, hints and indirect instructions can also be difficult. These are areas where a speech-language pathologist can help a child with autism.

Conclusion:

Autism is usually detectable before age 3, and language delays can be detected as early as 18 months of age. In some cases, autism can be identified as early as 10 to 12 months of age. It is very important to start speech and language therapy for children with autism as early as possible, when this can have the greatest impact.

Inspired by Sumitha Hemavathy