How To Teach An Autistic Child To Talk: Top 9 Strategies

Listening to your child’s first word and enjoying their chatter is every parent’s dream.

As a parent of an autistic child achieving these simple joys of life becomes challenging. But how to teach an autistic child to talk?

Though this question has bothered you repeatedly, patience and the right strategies are the keys to overcoming these challenges. 

Your child may face challenges like difficulties with language, sensory processing, and social interaction. When you understand these challenges and use evidence-based techniques to help and support them, you can boost their communication skills drastically. 

Your child will have better social interactions, reduced levels of frustration, and boosted confidence when their communication skills improve. Nothing can beat the satisfaction you will have watching your child communicate confidently and mingle with the people around them like their peers. 

Let’s learn about these techniques that can boost your child’s communication skills and help them overcome the challenges thrown by autism to have a brighter future.

Key Takeaways

• Autism can affect your child’s communication skills in different ways, including verbal, and nonverbal communication, understanding social cues, and expressing needs and emotions. You can address these issues of your child once you identify them.
• Teaching your child communication skills is important for their social development, emotional well-being, and independence. Your child’s frustration will be reduced, their ability to develop relationships will be boosted, and they will have more opportunities to learn and grow with improved communication skills.
• Strategies like visual aids, speech therapy, social stories, and technology-assisted activities can improve your child’s communication skills.
• Stem cell therapy is one way to get promising results in improving your child’s neurological functions related to their communication skills.

How does Autism affect a child’s communication skills?

Your child may have problems developing language skills, and they may also struggle to understand what others say to them if they have autism. They also have difficulty in non-verbal communication like eye contact, hand gestures, and facial expressions.

Brain imaging studies in recent years have shown how an autistic child’s brain functions compared to a normal child. The difference is visible in the areas of the brain related to language. Scientists haven’t found the exact reason why this happens. 

The best part is this research is shedding light on the nature of autism which will help find better interventions to support autistic people live an independent life. 

To learn more about Autism and ASD, check our article on the same.

Why teaching communication to Autistic children is important? 

You need to boost your child’s communication skills as these skills are important for their overall development. Communication skills help your child understand the world around them better. It also helps them connect with others and express themselves. 

Your child will be able to express themselves effectively, they will be able to bond with family and friends better which will reduce their frustration and behavioural issues.

They will also lead a fulfilling and connected life with stronger communication skills and they will be able to participate more effectively in everyday activities, education, and social interaction.

How to teach an Autistic child to talk?

You need to understand that every autistic child is unique before we share the strategies to boost their communication. You may put all your efforts but that may not work very well for your child. But at the same time, you may see a drastic change in them with another strategy.

So you need to have patience while using these strategies to improve your child’s language and communication skills. Here are 9 such strategies, let’s learn about them in detail:

1. Simplify your language

You need to know the difference between expressive and receptive communication skills. All autistic children face some degree of challenge in both or one of these skills. Expressive skill means using verbal or non-verbal communication to convey a message, while receptive skill means receiving and understanding words, language or any non-verbal communication that people want to convey to you.

When you use simple language, you help your child follow what you are saying. It also makes it easier for them to imitate your speech. 

If your child is completely non-verbal, start speaking single-word sentences with them.

2. Understand your child’s interests

You can make learning more interesting and motivating for your child when you know what they are interested in. If your child loves cars, you can use car-related words or themes in your conversation to get their attention and also encourage them to use language related to their interests.

But while doing so you need to keep in mind that instead of interrupting your child, you should encourage them to just go with the flow. 

You can do so by simply using one word each time. Suppose your child is playing with building blocks you can say block when they pick one up, and say stack when they stack it up on top of another. When the stack falls down you can say “fall down”.

3. Use visual support 

Visual support means using pictures and other objects to communicate with kids who have problems understanding and using language. You can use photographs, drawings, objects, lists, and written words as visual support.

Visual supports help you communicate better with your autistic child and they also help the child communicate better with you and others. Autistic children interact and communicate differently compared to non-autistic children. 

They may understand the social cues differently which may affect how they react to social interactions and adapt to unspoken social rules. You can use visual support to teach them social skills and help your child deal with social situations independently.

4. Encourage them to imitate

You may think that there is no connection between imitation and communication. However, as per scientists, being able to imitate is linked to children’s language development and play skills.

Researchers have also found that there is a connection between the ability to imitate others and an important skill (intentional communication) needed for meaningful communication.

By Imitating your child’s behaviour, you encourage and motivate them to speak and interact more. When you copy them, they get the encouragement to copy you and speak in turn. Try to imitate their positive behaviour. For instance, when they play with a doll or toy, imitate their movements. But when they throw things, avoid imitating them.

5. Use social stories

Social stories are best for your child if they are trying to develop some form of communication but are unsure of what to do in a specific situation. 

For example, a social story can be developed on the events that happen in a playground or a supermarket and how the child can behave and communicate on the spot according to the pre-described situations.

6. Teach them turn-taking

Your child needs to learn turn-taking because it improves communication and listening skills by teaching them to express themselves clearly. Turn-taking means talking alternately or in succession. It helps them understand non-verbal cues and respond thoughtfully to what others are saying.

Interactive games are the best way to teach your child turn-taking. You can follow these steps to teach them turn-taking:

• Show them what is turn-taking when you are interacting with others. Show them how to wait for their turn while interacting with others. You should encourage them to observe and imitate.
• You can use visual aids like cue cards, timers or charts to show them when it’s their turn. 
• Games that involve turn-taking like rolling a ball back and forth, or playing board games can help them acquire the habit.
• When your child successfully takes a turn, reward them with positive feedback.
• Keep the instructions clear. Teach them the rules of turn-taking. Consistent and clear instruction is very important.
• You can use social stories to make the concept clear. 
• Make them practice in different settings like home, school, and playground.
• You can also create role-playing scenarios to teach turn-taking
• You can use the peer model in which your child can be paired with another child who is proficient in turn-taking. This will give an example of motivation to do it correctly.

7. Incorporate play

Your child can learn language and communication skills easily with play-based interactive games. Playing interactive games with friends makes it engaging and interesting for them.

You can start it with role-playing different scenarios like visiting a doctor or grocery shop. Pretend play is another engaging game where you can play with them house or cooking game. That way they can learn vocabulary that’s used in their daily life.

Board games, card games, or digital games that require a lot of communication can also help boost your child’s communication skills.

8. Take the help of speech therapy

Speech therapy is one way to help your child gain control over their verbal communication. It also helps them understand verbal and nonverbal communication that people use with them. 

It helps them understand cues like body language and facial expressions and motivates them to initiate communication without prompt. Here are some of the benefits of speech therapy.

• Speech therapy helps your child understand what is being said to them. It helps them express themselves without using any prompts.
• They can express their wants and needs with the help of speech therapy and make a better bond with friends and family.
• Autistic children may have echolalia (repetition of words and phrases spoken by others). Speech therapy helps them overcome it and speak in a clear and precise manner which makes it easier for others to understand them.
• Your child may find it difficult to articulate sounds and form sentences. Speech therapy helps them overcome this hurdle, too.

9. Take the help of Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cells have the power to regenerate into any kind of cell. Depending on the local environment where they are injected and the complex action of the growth factors, they develop into specific cell types. 

Neuronal cells to cure autism can also develop from autologous stem cells. These newly formed neuronal cells can improve the neuronal circuit in the brain and the spinal cord and help the child in learning and speaking. 

Stem cell therapy can cure fast. It also speeds up the improvements compared to other conventional methods.

After extracting the stem cells, they are cultured in laboratories. 

The cultured cells are reinjected intravenously into the child’s body. Soon you will observe improvements in your child’s cognitive skills and ability to understand. This in turn will help improve their communication skills.

Takeaway

The techniques and treatments mentioned in this list will help immensely in inculcating communication and language skills in your child. 

But here you need to remember that every autistic child is different and their learning journey will be different. As a parent and caregiver, you need to understand this uniqueness and work together with professionals to give your child the best care and support. 

You can opt for stem cell therapy which has shown some remarkable results in autism treatment. It can improve brain and spinal cord activities and help in learning and cognition, ultimately developing the power to communicate.

Medicoexperts has helped many autistic children live a self-reliant, happy, and healthy life like their peers. To know how we can help you with the best treatment, support, and care for your child, contact us today.

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Medically Reviewed by MedicoExperts Editorial & Clinical Review Board on 19 September 2024