Speech Therapy and Our Autistic Child

So, one of the most obvious characteristics of Autism is Speech delay. When our son Kade was 18 months old his speech seemed stunted. It was hard to explain but it just seemed to me that Kade just wasn’t progressing like he should have been. I mean boys are slow to speak sometimes and He has a very laid back personality. But, no matter how we put it. He was not developing typically, we didn’t know it then but, Kade was Autistic.

Our first Speech therapist was the Nazi of all speech therapists. She was about 70 years old. Hardly had a sweet grandma bone in her body. But, I was desperate to get my boy to talk. So, I told her…whatever it takes. The session lasted 1 hour, once per week. The speech therapy room had a table with two chairs. One for the child and one with the therapist with all the toys in shelves behind her. If the child wanted anything like a toy. The child would have to go through the therapist to get it. The child was to sit at the table at all times and not get up. Well, let me tell you….Kade did not do well working with her. Within 2 sessions she told me that my son was aggressive and had behavior issues. Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha… I knew that Kade had problems…But, behaviors were not one of them. To this day she has been the only person who has ever said that about Kade. I am not that parent in denial about what my kids are really like either. As far as I could tell the old lady and her un-child friendly treatment was the problem. Within the next week she called (speaking about herself in the third person) saying that she was no longer going to be working at that speech therapy center. Thank Goodness!

SARRC: The Southwest Research and Resource Center

Here in Arizona this center specializes in educating the community, parents and Autistic kids. They are AMAZING! They have a program called Jump Start. It discusses EVERYTHING! From: Working with your autistic child, therapy, state and federal funding, services, potty training, education and much more! Here we watched the teachers work with Kade. They taught us ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy and PRT (Pivotal Response Treatment). We saw Kade progress and bloom with speech during this time and ever since. We had been using some sign language and Kade had been saying a few words. Here we stopped accepting Sign. Only Kade’s words or any words got him what he wanted. From getting a snack or juice to being picked up and getting toys he wanted to play with.

Our second speech therapist was younger and more into studying Kade and his needs. She told us each week the things she saw and the progress he was making. It seemed that he still was not flourishing with her. And, I felt like she was running out of things to work with him on.

Finally, we had been on a wait list for one Speech Therapy company for a year. I called again and we go in. Kade’s speech started changing quickly. I can’t say it was just that. He started pre-school at the same time and I also was implementing a program at home. He was busy all day long at this point. But, we finally found someone who saw all the areas Kade needed work in and has little by little worked on his speech and his Autism. We found a therapist who didn’t just have Kade work on the things she had planned. But they also work on Imaginative play, requesting, listing, naming, choices, and order of operations. A Truly amazing therapist!

So, If could recommend anything….I’d say try a few things until you find the thing that works best for your child! Kade’s speech still is not at age level. But, that doesn’t mean we don’t work with him everyday. For every single thing he wants or see’s!

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