Autism: How Do You Communicate With a Non-Verbal Child?

I am a teacher and recently, I assisted to one of these workshops meant to improve the quality of your teaching methods. I also am the mother of two young autistic children. My oldest is a 5 years old boy, which is considered to be non-verbal as he may not have used more than six words in his life. "Mama" was said for the first time about a year ago when he was 41/2 years old. I can't describe to you how precious this magic moment was. I still enjoy it every time he pronounces it.

Sometimes, teachers need to be taught a few things!

During this workshop, we were studying the multiple ways that a person learns new information. Some are visual and learn using diagrams, drawings, pictures, etc. Others are using manipulative to understand new concepts. There are eight types of learning styles. One of them is called: "verbal". This type of processing is done orally and using written material such as books, essays, etc. One of the statements that was made was that: "The more people express themselves orally, the more easily they will be able to express themselves and show their knowledge through their writing skills."

It burned me inside. That is when I shared both my feelings and my experience concerning my son with my colleagues. It opened a new door for me when I realized that the question that popped up in people's mind really was: "Autism: How do you communicate with a non-verbal child?"

That is when I decided to share some information related to my experience as a parent of a non-verbal child who is affected by the Autism Spectrum disorder.

A bit of personal history of my non-verbal son

My son is considered non-verbal since his vocabulary contains approximately six words which are mainly used when frustration sets in, especially when his message is not understood by the person he is communication with, at the time. Physically, he is able to speak as he is able to pronounce words but for an unknown reason, he is not communicating with others this way.

Doctors have explained that he has 50% chances of becoming verbal one day as in several cases; non-verbal children affected by Autism will start speaking between the ages of 5 to 8 years old. Some children even began speaking as late as 13 years old.

When he does speak without being influenced by frustration, his words are said in such a faint tone of voice that they are often difficult to understand or heard, if at all. As a parent, you sometimes think that you have heard him speak but being unsure you tend to believe that you heard things that you want to hear without reflecting reality. Sometimes, it may be the case but you will never know it for sure.

Communication with a non-verbal child

So, how do we communicate with our son? Well, we are using a variety of techniques. For example, in certain cases we use concrete objects that we either show him or the other way around. If he wants a sandwich, he will bring the container of jam to us. If he wants the remote control, he will take us to the shelf, take our hand and point it towards it. If you ask him to choose between several options, we will observe his reaction towards each one of them. If he gets excited, his body language will display his affirmative response by jumping up and down, some hand flapping accompanied by a huge smile. When the answer is negative, he will become upset, push away the item, turn away from it and sometimes he will even cry.

What are other ways that we use for communication purposes? Well, we use a bit of sign language, the PECS, objects and observe a lot of his reactions and the clues that he gives us such as: his body language, his tone of voice, his sounds, the expression on his face as well as the gestures that he makes us do such as putting our hands on his head with pressure to communicate that he has a headache. Another thing that we keep an eye on is his routine and the slightest changes that may be responsible for his sudden distress.

Lack of information can lead to harsh and judgmental comments

Today, I went to the hair salon. The hairdresser told me that earlier, she cut the hair of an autistic child. She said that she thought he was "normal" until she was told that he was affected by ASD. Then, she said that as all children with ASD, he was "a bit behind mentally". I was so disgusted, hurt and angry that I even considered leaving but being in the process of a haircut, I did not want to leave with half of it completed.

I explained to her that it was a misconception that all people with ASD were affected by mental developmental delay. I also explained that during my workshop, I was told that someone who is non-verbal cannot communicate which meant, according to them that they were automatically affected by intellectual difficulties. I explained that not being verbal does not mean that someone cannot communicate efficiently their thoughts and knowledge.

Knowledge is present in a non-verbal child

As a parent, I often feel hurt and frustrated about the misconceptions that people have about Autism. At school, my son has been evaluated differently but he still surprises the school staff that work with him by his knowledge. Since he is using the computer efficiently, maybe he can use it later in life to communicate with us if he remains non-verbal.

Autism is often misunderstood

Often, people do not understand the frustration level of a non-verbal person. Well, imagine that you visit a country where you are unable to communicate with people in their own language. Wouldn't you feel frustrated after a while? Now, imagine how it would feel to live like this every day!

If people ask you in the future: "How do you communicate with a non-verbal child?" You will be able not only to answer their question but also to enlighten them by sharing some insightful information as Autism is often unknown, even by the Educational system.

If you wish to learn more information about Autism, I invite you to visit the following sites: http://autism-spectrum-disorder.com, http://autism-spectrum.blogspot.com and http://autism.findoutnow.org.

Autism Causes, Symptoms and Treatments - Effective Strategies for Children on the Autistic Spectrum

No matter how you look at it, autism is complicated. It is best understood as a spectrum of related disorders because it encompasses a broad range of abilities and symptoms all sharing common traits such as difficulties with language and social interactions. The ASD umbrella includes people who have severe communication deficits and a total inability to cope with the world, to people who can live independently, but lack the breadth of interests and social skills we expect in adults.

Many people still believe ASD is an educational issue, a mental health disorder, or the result of bad parenting. Unfortunately, many medical professionals still do not accept that there are biochemical problems (flaws in the chemistry our bodies require to function normally) at the root of ASDs. The current standard of care for most ASD patients is prescription drugs to "manage" symptoms. This might make it easier for others to live with an ASD person, but it cannot be considered an effective treatment, as it doesn't address the root causes of the disease. However, if you are open to understanding ASD as a set of unique biochemical problems and are willing to fight to make your child better, you will almost certainly succeed.

There are many different pathways leading to an ASD diagnosis. A child with ASD is likely to have many different biochemical problems and these problems may only slightly overlap with another ASD child's issues. This one fact is almost always overlooked in scientific studies, books, and especially in media reports. You may have heard reports which conclude a particular cause (like mercury poisoning from childhood immunizations) is not correlated with autism, or a particular treatment (such as chelation or nutritional supplements) is not effective. You may even have tried giving your child a treatment someone swore did a world of good for their child, only to be disappointed. There is no "one-size-fits-all" cure for ASD. There are as many different forms of ASD as there are people who have it. Since each case of autism is unique, your child's autism cannot be treated effectively until his or her unique problems are determined and a customized treatment plan is created and strictly followed.

This will not be easy, and may be the most difficult thing you have ever done. It is much easier to pretend your child will grow out his or her ASD symptoms, or that there is nothing you can do. Nothing could be further from the truth -- your child needs help to get better and treatments are easier and more effective if started when a child is young.

It is very important that you take a leadership role in your child's recovery. You know your child best and need to assemble an effective team of medical professionals and educators who can help you and your child. Your child cannot do this on his or her own, and your pediatrician and even some so-called ASD experts may not understand this disorder well enough to truly help.

The most effective treatments for ASD may not be well known to your current doctor, but they are not "weird", "fringe" or even "non-traditional". They are the result of decades of scientific research by leading ASD scientists and physicians. Most importantly, they are the treatments used and recommended by over 25,000 parents of ASD kids who administer therapies and carefully document the positive and negative effects of these treatments. The bottom line is this -- if you want your ASD child to get better, you are going to have to think for yourself and take charge starting right now.

If you are a parent of an ASD child, you have a long and difficult challenge ahead of you. You can choose to accept a lifetime of disability for your child, or face this disease head on. The decision is yours.

There are many resources available to learn about treating autism. Some are very technical; others are too general to be of much immediate help, or are nothing more than a sales gimmick. Conquer Autism is a comprehensive and hands-on eBook written for parents and caregivers. It describes exactly how to determine your child's unique problems and how to design and implement effective treatments. It is guaranteed to help you and your child conquer the biochemical problems at the root of their ASD. However, this will be just one step of the battle. Conquer Autism also reviews the essential clinical services your child will need to fully recover and techniques to cope with ASD at home and at school. Conquer Autism, and more information about effective treatments for Autism and ASD are available at http://www.conquerautism.com

Autistic Teaching - An Eight Point Primer For Parents of a Child With Autism

Autistic teaching can be a challenging topic for parents who have recently received a diagnosis for their child and have stepped into exploring the expansive world of autism and what it means. This short article aims to help you overcome that feeling of overwhelming emotion and give you some direction for planning your child's teaching program.

When you first receive the diagnosis of "Autism Spectrum Disorder" you probably go through a mixture of feelings and have a ton of questions. One of the big questions in the background is that of teaching. How will your child be able to learn if he or she has problems with the basic skills needed to learn? Here are ten important points you should understand and explore as it applies to your child. These ten points not only help with autistic teaching, they help you better understand your child's needs.

1. Autistic children are visual. They like nouns. Verbs are more of a challenge and must be demonstrated. This is an important point in autistic teaching.

2. Charts and sequence learning helps. If your child is able to read, use written steps to teach tasks. Write down anything with more than three steps.

3. Uss the love of art. Most autistic children love art. Encourage this skill. It may become their life passion and lead to gainful employment.

4. Find your child's intense interest. It could be maps, or video games, or specific book topics. Use this fixation to teach.

5. Let your child try the computer for writing. Many autistic children have motor control problems and get frustrated using a pencil and paper.

6. Identify your child's learning style. Is he or she better with phonics or whole word? Whether one or the other, use flashcards that have both the image and the words.

7. Beware of sounds sensitivity. Some sounds can be disruptive to an autistic child and you may notice this in your child when a specific noise occurs. The child will cover his or her ears. To prevent this in autistic teaching settings or even at home provide a pleasant background noise using an MP3 player or a white noise machine.

8. Avoid negative visual stimulation. Some visual interferences can be distracting for some autistic children. Avoid using fluorescent lights and make sure any light you do use does not flicker.

With these eight points you can begin to approach autistic teaching with basic steps that can make the process of learning much easier for you and your child.

Learn to help your autistic child embrace the world with his or her own special abilities and challenges. For more information, resources, and ideas for teaching autistic children visit [http://autistic-teaching.com]

How To Help Your Aspergers Child Make Friends

It is no secret that children can be cruel and a child that does not appear to fit in can be the subject of taunting and ridicule. This present a major problem for the child and his parents as the child will have trouble making and retaining friends and other social interactions, and the child with Aspergers Syndrome can be adversely affected.

First of all, please understand that just because your child has Aspergers does not mean that they are intellectually limited. Various studies in fact have indicated that children with autism and Aspergers are actually very smart, many times being intellectually superior to their peers of the same age group. Unfortunately, the social interaction part of their maturity has fallen behind the rest of their maturing process, which presents the parents with another challenge along the same lines. In other words, they are probably not intellectually challenged, but simply "socially challenged", and the best thing you can do as parents is to work with them to help them overcome that aspect.

One of the best things you can do as parents is to do role-playing activities or scenarios which would reflect a natural social environment such as another child's birthday party or pool party or similar setting. Work with the child to help them understand how to join in with the playground games, how to converse with their playmates, and what is and is not expected of them in this type of setting. Helping them to become comfortable in this type of setting can go a long ways towards helping them fit in when they participate in actual events with their peers.

Children with Aspergers and autism will face internal anxiety if they cannot accept their current surroundings. Try to teach them not to obsess about objects or any preferred items or activities. Work with them to find out what calms them so that anxiety can be subdued and controlled.

Normal everyday life at school can present its own unique set of challenges, since social interaction is a normal part of school life. Be sure to let the teachers know about the Aspergers or autism in your child so that they can make accommodations for them as they are able to. Most schools are happy to work with you and your child in this respect, but it will take effort on both parts. Work with your child at home to help them become comfortable with social interactions, perhaps starting with just one friend on a one-to-one basis and then increasing to more friends. Put them in an environment, even in your role-playing, where they will see and recognize success, instead of putting them in a situation where failure is inevitable.

Children with Aspergers or autism need to be given extra chances to make and retain friends, build social networks, and understand what is acceptable for interacting with others. If you can work with them in a role-playing environment, it will be easier for them to learn these skills. Do not force them, but rather be positive and supportive so that they will not dread any future social interactions.

For more information about Aspergers Syndrome Aspergers Disorder please visit our web site at http://www.aspergers-syndrome-explained.com

Diagnosing Autism and the Differences With Sensory Integration Disorder

When it comes to diagnosing autism, there are many different factors that need to be considered. This is because the autism spectrum disorders have such a vast range of potential symptoms and no two cases are alike. Therefore, it is very easy to mistake autism for another condition. Among the most common mistakes when diagnosing autism is not understanding the difference between being on the spectrum, and sensory integration disorder.

This leads to the question of whether autism spectrum disorder and sensory integration disorder (also known as sensory processing disorder) are the same condition, or at the very least if they are related. Does one exclude the other? To begin, they are considered to be completely separate disorders, but to further understand them, Dr. Lucy Jane Miller performed a study "Quantitative psychophysiologic evaluation of Sensory Processing in children with autistic spectrum disorders", involving 40 high functioning autism or Aspergers Syndrome children who were tested for sensory integration disorder.

Dr Miller's results showed 78 percent of the participating children also displayed notable signs of sensory integration disorder. While, 22 percent of the participants did not show signs. However, a secondary study by the same researchers, "Relations among subtypes of Sensory Modulation Dysfunction" looked into children diagnosed with sensory integration disorder and tested them to see how many also had autism. Within that experiment, zero percent of the participants had autism. The reason that this is interesting is that while children with autism can exist without having sensory integration disorder, the majority show signs of the condition. On the other hand, there is no inclination toward autism in children who have only sensory integration disorder.

Children with both disorders demonstrate challenges with high-level tasks that involve the integration of different areas of the brain. This can include emotional regulation as well as complex sensory functions. However, the key to diagnosing autism as opposed to sensory integration disorder usually lies in the fact that autistic children experience greater problems in the areas of language, empathy, and social skills. Sensory integration disorder children do not experience the same connective breakdowns for controlling emotional empathy and social interaction.

In both disorders, children experience difficulties in tasks that require their brains to make long-distance connections, for example, between the frontal lobes (which coordinate the activities of the brain) and with the cerebellum (which regulates the perceptions and responses within the brain).

If you think that your child may have one or both of these disorders, it is important to speak to your child's pediatrician for autism diagnosing or identification of sensory integration disorder on its own or in combination with autism. If autism or autism alongside sensory integration disorder is the diagnosis, then you will be able to begin talking about the possible treatments available. These treatments can include various medications as well as alternative therapies and may overlap in terms of addressing aspects of both conditions simultaneously. For example many children with autism benefit from sensory integration therapies that also work well for children with sensory integration disorder.

Grab your free copy of Rachel Evans' brand new Autism Newsletter - Overflowing with easy to implement methods to help you and your family find out how to go about diagnosing autism and for information on autism characteristics please visit The Essential Guide To Autism.

Autism Symptoms - Mild Signs of the Spectrum Disorder

The signs of autism sometimes show up during infancy, but it isn't until around three years old that children exhibit the milder signs. Because early intervention is crucial for the development of the child, the following guidelines are presented to assist parents in recognizing mild autism in their child.

* It is difficult for them to make friends. Socialization is impaired because of an inability to communicate effectively. If they are able to start a conversation with a peer, they may not be able to sustain it.

* They become focused on one activity to the exclusion of their surroundings. They may even sit and stare at a toy or other object for long stretches of time.

* They show a decreased ability to make eye contact with others and are unable to maintain it for long when they do succeed at it.

*Sudden temper tantrums may occur over situations that are not bothersome to average children. Yet when it comes to others, they show a distinct lack of consideration for feelings and desires.

* An autistic child may repeat lines from a conversation, book, or movie incessantly.

* The child might talk too much or talk about things that are unrelated to the current conversation. Attempts to draw them back to the topic at hand can be futile.

* They may have extremely precise knowledge of things that seem trivial to those around them. For example, a mildly autistic child might know every type of bolt used on a specific type of vehicle.

* They may have impaired fine and gross motor skills ability.

* They may not pick on cues from the body language of others.

Autism, whether mild or severe has been described as being "locked inside oneself". They usually recognize that something is wrong with them and this can cause distress leading to depression and a worsening of their symptoms. Because of impaired social development, children with mild autism are often bullied and teased. This causes them more psychological damage and if the problem is not addressed, it may cause their condition to worsen into the more severe form of autism.

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Early Treatment For Autism Works

Autism is a mysterious illness that affects millions of children around the world. Early intervention has been noted as a key part of treatment. However, a new study finds that early treatment may not have the intended effects.

British researchers recruited more than 150 autistic children to participate in their study. Each child was randomly assigned to communication-focused treatment, which has been found to be effective in a few small studies, or standard treatment. Over the course of one year, the children in the treatment group received language therapy sessions in which parents learned how to communicate better with their autistic children. The two groups were compared at the end of the study to determine any significant improvement resulting from either standard or communication-focused treatment.

They found that early treatment for autism does not significantly improve symptoms, but it does benefit parent-child interaction. The researchers accounted for factors such as age and treatment center when making the comparisons. The prevalence of autism symptoms remained the same for both groups. A widely used assessment test was used to evaluate symptoms. While researchers were disappointed in this aspect of the results, they were encouraged by the gains made in communication between parents and children.

In the United States, autism spectrum disorders affect about 1 in 100 children. Treatment for autism spectrum disorders currently costs healthcare systems billions of dollars every year. Symptoms of autism include poor social skills, slow language development, and repetitive behaviors. Treating these symptoms with drugs or behavioral therapy have not been widely effective thus far. As a result, researchers continue to look for new means of intervention.

The results of this study shed new light on what works and what may not work when it comes to treating autism spectrum disorders. Future studies are needed to find more beneficial forms of treatment.

Along with writing articles, Joseph enjoys working in his gardens. Garden Harvest Supply is one of his favorite gardening websites which offer heuchera plants and potted hosta plants for sale for fast shipping directly to your flower gardens.