H has a diagnosis of Autism and has been seen for 5 years. He has had a lot of speech therapy success after having no language and little communication but using a lot of echolalia (repetitive phrases) and not being able to sit and complete activities sitting at a table.
However, amazingly now he is able to use many grammatical structures, such as direct and indirect pronouns (he/she, him/her) prepositions (in, on, under, next to), a variety of different adjectives (describing words), regular and some irregular past tense verbs (did, ate, laughed, jumped), time concepts (first, next, last, when, yesterday), responding to simple questions (such as what did you do yesterday? who is in your family? where do you go to school?), putting pictures in the correct story order and he has a much wider range of vocabulary.
These successes have been achieved through a variety of different types of therapy such as Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Shape Coding, visual supports and Makaton signing, to name but a few. Resources
Speech therapy has used a mixture of face to face therapy and training of adults in his environment, and what a communication success story he is. His mother has been a phenomenal support, continuing the targets set each week at home with him so that he progresses in small steps.
Last week, he had an unprompted conversation over Skype with an unfamilar child. (He is based outside of London in Hemel Hemsptead and the Speech Therapist provided remote therapy from North London). Independently and without being asked, he was able to ask appropriate questions, commenting on his communication partner’s statements and responding to her statements accordingly.
He demonstrated appropriate facial expressions, eye contact and verbal comunication. It was wonderful to see the joy and pleasure on his mother’s face. Well done H, we are all so proud of your journey so far and your speech therapy success. Keep it going………