Autism Awareness Month started on April 1st, making this a good time to update information relevant to the Autism community. On March 27, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Read full post »
Autism Prevalence in the United States
A Conversation With My Younger Self
The title of this blog series is “A Conversation With My Younger Self”. We wondered what parents and providers would say to their younger selves having the wisdom of hindsight and if there might be any words of wisdom our younger selves might have for us today. We begin with providers.
Anita Wright, Speech Pathologist
As a young professional, there was a lot I didn’t know or understand about autism. I should have taken more time to describe to parents the strengths their child exhibited, not just the deficits, not just the worrisome behaviors. I would have helped parents recognize and emphasize the positive aspects of their child and point out how we can build on those strengths to broaden the child’s skills in other areas.
As a parent, I’d remind myself not to be too quick to give up on teaching new things, even when the going seems incredibly slow. Time and persistence on a parent’s part can sometimes bring surprising Read full post »
Communication in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder- Part 2
Our second installment of a 4-part series focusing on communication in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) focuses on the emerging verbal stage of development.
Children on the autism spectrum who are in the “Emerging Verbal” stage of language acquisition are just beginning to acquire single words and some 2-3 word phrases and are using them to communicate with the people around them. Their vocabulary is still quite limited, but they are beginning to use words functionally, i.e., for specific social purposes. They have acquired what is called “intentional communication” and are beginning to communicate for a variety of functions including requests, comments, asking questions, greetings or a number of other communicative functions. (Part 1 of the series: Pre-Intentional/Pre-Verbal)
