Teaching Your Child to Communicate

No story to tell really, but I could not help but be drawn in by your description of methods you used to teach your son, the innovations and work of yourself and the others to create and develop materials and instructions.

I was reminded, before you ever got to the mention of sign language, of watching in awe the movie, The Miracle Worker, which I know you have mentioned before, but it is one I saw as a young person and have seen it a number of times since, still in awe.

There is a way. No one could have believed it at one time, but a way was found to communicate, some middle ground between one so desperate to be understood and one just as desperate to understand.

These are good descriptions of working hard to do just that, and I appreciate your telling about them. Through your own hard work, and his, both lives got better. So can others.

Thank you for sharing this story, Merely Me.  I wish there had been that kind of help available when my son was younger, but they didn't even realize he was autistic until he was a little older.  He could talk, but just preferred not to very often.  He started stuttering when he was two, which led to a speech therapist, which led to a developmental specialist, etc., etc.  He got the diagnosis of educable mentally handicapped.  It's just never been easy for him to express himself and the stuttering probably doesn't help.  I can see where music would be a good way to get a child to verbalize if they like to sing - never thought of that.  I like the idea of sign language, too.  In fact, my grandson has learned several signs for what he wants at daycare and I know they are teaching that to a lot of babies nowadays - how ingenious!

Luckily, my son learned to read easily and can write pretty well, so that's been helpful.  His I.Q. qualifies him for assistance, but I really believe that he's more intelligent than that, he just doesn't test well.  He suffered brain damage at birth that affects the frontal lobe where information is retrieved.  It's in there, he just can't always access it.

Thanks again for the great article!

Try reading The Horse Boy by Rupert Isacson.  That may give you some insight. 

We started Signed English ( simpler than ASL) before my son was 2, because he only said 'ma' and a couple of non-words/sounds he seemed to like.  He picked signing up incredibly quickly, starting with 'more' which I think is the first sign most folks start because it's easy to model e.g. we gave him a small cup with just a bit of juice, or just a couple of cheerios/raisins etc, and then he had to ask/sign for more. We would emphasize speech and sign at the same time, e.g. 'Oh, you want MORE juice'.  It is actually kind of hard to learn deliberately to be INefficient as a mom, because our instinct is to forsee and meet their needs; but we need to NOT meet their needs ( in appropriate small ways of course) to fore them to reach out to us.

He was absolutely THRILLED when he realized we knew what he wanted! There was also a huge benefit in terms of behaviour and frustration ( his and ours!). When eventually he started to speak, it was a bit rough again for a while because often he refused to sign; he probably figured he was talking just like everyone else. We kept signing and speaking, and eventually, he became almost 100% intelligible by about 6.

I remember being shocked and afraid (and probably even a little angry) when they first suggested sign, because of course I wanted him to speak!  But they were absolutely right:  when he was finally neurologically ready to speak, he did. We had lots of SLP expertise and support, because of course language development is 24/7; they taught us what to work on, and in what order.

Some people think signing delays oral language, but even IF there might have been a short delay, from my experience and that of many parents who have gone through this, we saw a great benefit in so many aspects of all our lives, in terms of behaviour and having a happier child who could communicate and know people understood him.

Don't forget that many people now teach even 'normal' babies to sign, much earlier than they develop speech.