Parents of autistic children-the challenge of a nonverbal child

Parents of autistic children know that there are many challenges for parents of autistic children, mostly non-verbal.

Non-verbal children cannot express their desires, aversions, feelings or anything else about themselves in words. They cannot answer questions. It is often very frustrating for the father and son with autism have a good relationship without the use of verbal communication.

Parents of autistic children understandably want to know what the child is thinking and feeling are they happy? Sad? It Hurts? Hungry? Lonely? How can I help them? The child also wants to communicate these things, but they cannot. Many non-verbal autistic children will act out of frustration than not having any viable way to communicate. It is a difficult balance for all involved.

Fortunately, there are alternative forms of communication that have been developed to help the non-verbal autistic children.

Exchange communication system (PECS) image

A very common method is called the PECS (Picture Exchange communication system). PECS is a method to get a child to point to pictures to show their desires or needs.

Preprinted image books are available, or you can make your own images. It is important to make sure that the images are things that your child is motivated to express.

What would these pictures? They could be your favorite activities, food they like, toys and books. Also, pictures that show words such as "Yes", "not", "it hurts" and images convey emotions are important, too. You can create your own images or use a library of images already created for this purpose in a software program such as Boardmaker, you can get into mayer-johnson.com.

Use a method such as PECS can help an autistic child gain a basic level of functional communication. You can increase the number of images used as your child gets older.

Sign language

A lot of children who are non-verbal learning sign language to help them communicate. Since many autistic children are visual learners, signing often comes more naturally to them than the spoken language.

Two types of sign language are used in the US, American sign language and something called Pidgin Sign Language. An advantage to PSL is that has a more intuitive, and it may be easier for autistic children to learn.

Many parents feel that sign language is a good building block for children to learn the language. Even if it doesn't, have a small communication is always better than no communication at all.

Portable devices for TTS (text to speech)

Another option for children who are non-verbal is a device called an AlphaSmart. The AlphaSmart is used to write what the person wants to say. It is basically a small keyboard, cheap batteries, with a screen showing what is being typed. Some of these devices have speakers who will then speak the words aloud to the person. With the addition of a speaker, they become portable devices of TTS (text to speech). These can work well with those who can write, but not speak.

Fortunately, there are several creative options to help parents of autistic children, whose children are non-verbal, especially if these children have fine motor skills.

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