Therapy Tips

3 Quick Tips For Language Development With Nonverbal Children

Many children with autism do not speak to communicate their needs and wants. And children who do not speak show a wide range of abilities to communicate, such as pointing or pulling a caregiver to a place with an item they desire. No matter where your child is on the spectrum of language abilities, it’s important to determine what your child is comfortable with, what challenges them, and what they respond to. Here are three quick and easy tips that will help you learn more about your child as you begin teaching them to communicate.

1. Identify

The first step for parents is to identify what motivates their child. What activities excite them? What objects do they respond to? No one knows your child better than you do, and determining which activities and objects he or she engages with the longest is the key factor in teaching communication. The best way to determine which activities and objects are most motivating for your child is to do a preference assessment. You can do a formal preference assessment with the help of a behavior therapist or special education teacher, but it’s also quite simple to do informal preference assessments. For instance, you might place several objects within reach of your child and observe which ones they reach for first or play with for the longest. If you do this with several different types of items you should be able to identify a list of objects and activities your child really enjoys.

2. Motivate

A lot of parents can get frustrated, and it’s understandable. Parents may want their children to communicate more specifically – to speak their name, to ask for the things they want, and even to say “hello.” But the problem with starting with what adults want to hear is that it is not motivating to the child, therefore decreasing the likelihood that they’ll engage in communication at all. Teaching the child that communicating results in having their needs met and desires fulfilled will motivate them to initiate communication, make requests, and add more words to their vocabulary. This goes back to what you’ve identified as motivating for the child. If I am working with a child who is not speaking, I start by teaching them to communicate in single words, such as “juice,” “ball,” “up,” or any other object or activity that I’ve identified as motivating.

3. Reinforce

Once parents have identified the things that motivate their children, the strategy for increasing communication becomes one of repetition and reinforcement. Be prepared to respond to the appropriate communication with the appropriate reinforcement. For instance, if your child has begun to communicate three requests: “chip,” “doll,” and “playdough,” you need to have those items accessible as often as possible so that the child is reinforced for communicating as frequently as possible. In a sense, you are teaching your child the purpose of language. This is the hardest step to take, and requires a lot of organization and planning on your part. It may require making sure those items are available in multiple locations, communicating with adults that come into contact with your child what the current language goals are, and even teaching other family members how your child communicates at this point in time. But it is essential in teaching successful communication. As adults, we often underestimate what a challenging and complex skill verbal communication really is. Children who struggle with basic communication need a different level of education to develop a functional language. By identifying what motivates a nonverbal child, using it to continue to motivate them, and reinforcing communication with the expected results, parents of nonverbal children inch that much closer to success.