LANGUAGE BUILDING STRATEGIES

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GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT

BUT BETTER THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WORK FOR IT

Do you remember how we acquired language? I think mostly by observation (observing parents, siblings) by hearing, by imitation and finally by looking at books. We acquired language without much efforts and the whole process happened very naturally!!!!!! How lucky we were. But when it comes to children with autism, this area needs great focus and deserves lot of hard work. Language is a set of rules of generating speech. The most intensive period of speech and language development is during the first 3years of life. This period also called as sensory motor stage where our senses are maximized, child acquires skills pretty fast. At the age of 3, 4 and 5 child’s vocabulary rapidly increases, he/she begins to master the rules of language. Language includes set of rules:

Phonology (speech sounds)

Morphology (word formation)

Syntax (sentence formation)

Semantics (word and sentence meaning)

Prosody (intonation and rhythm of speech)

Pragmatics (effective use of language)

 Problems associated with language development in autistic children include difficulty with word and sentence meaning, sentence formation, pragmatics and intonation and rhythm. Most of our children language/ words referred to objects not to people because nouns are more concrete than other parts of language such as verbs and prepositions. It looks like they have obstacles in almost all the areas of language.  Most of the time they don’t use words to communicate instead comfortable with pointing or gestures. The research shows- 25-50% autistic children are nonverbal, most of them have significant delays in language and communication, most of kids uttered first words in 24 months and phrases in 36- 48 months, presence of immediate or delayed echolalia, poor conversation skills, less social-chat, unusual speech pattern( speed, volume, prosody). As we understood time and time again that our children are very strong visual learners, and they have difficulty learning language by listening although hearing acuity may be normal. Strings of verbal messages are difficult to process and learning by observing and imitation is hard because of associated problems like inattention and sensory needs.

 thanx to www.123rf.com for the above picture
There are so many wonderful ways that we can enhance our children’s language skills. Be creative and know that every opportunity is a learning experience. Let every place you go with your child, is a place to learn language. Here are some of the strategies to facilitate language developmentJJJJJJJJJ

v  Provide quite area when teaching your child, so the child has total focus on your instruction

v  See to that you capture your child’s motivation before teaching words or language instruction

v  Give him chance to explore the environment, as he shows interest on some object talk about it. Children register better when you teach on his/her preferred item

v  Learning language visually is the best way to teach our children - use lot of pictures, give visual cues for the words in order to process and register

v  Give lot of hands on practice for understanding the meaning of words and phrases( ex;  the acquisition of word  pouring, child should be given practice by actually pouring water from the cup)

v  Look for opportunities to prompt language, if your child finding difficult with something prompt him to ask for help

v  If the child repeats exactly what you say, when prompting language, just say exactly what you want him to say( “help me”) don’t say “ask for help” at a time

v  When prompting language, use the same words for each situation each time( always prompt him to say “help me” don’t say “ I need help”

v  Determine how many words your child is able to easily repeat begin your language program using phrases with that number of words or less

v  At first prompt every time, don’t wait for your child to say something prompt immediately. After student is successful use time delay technique

v  Labeling the environment- in the house label the items by sticking a written word  

v  Provide an opportunity to learn language from his/her real life experiences. Language acquisition happens everywhere, learning from the real life experience helps for easy transition and generalization

v  Language focus should include; teaching motor imitation( copying motor imitation activities includes clapping, rounding lips, shaking tongue, stamping legs etc) vocal imitation( copying sounds) matching skills( matching objects, pictures, words) reception( identification of objects, pictures, words) expression( labeling) requesting ( asking for needs in words) reading(  practice it acts as a visual cue for language acquisition) and finally social interaction( interacting with others using words and phrases meaningfully)

v  Play  lot of memory games for language acquisition( show picture cards to the child place them upside down ask him to recall, auditory to visual memory ; child arranges pictures in a sequence by listening to auditory instruction)

v  Acting out the word is also another method of teaching vocabulary

v  Teaching language in their own learning style( auditory learners learns language by listening, visual learners learns by seeing, if you are not aware of his/her learning style use multisensory learning)

v  Providing choice is a best way to bring out words from your child; start with two choice then make it more complex

v  Make sure every activity has starting point and ending point, that way child have some control of the environment.

v  Consistent with his routine and activities and some amount of structure which will help him to understand what’s happening and have ease with the tasks. Familiarity also helps in eliciting words and understanding language

v  Circle time activities; follow structure in the circle time, start with same beginning and ending activity with visual cues. Circle time stands out as a modeling strategy where children have opportunity to learn from other child

v  Encourage children playing games could be board games/indoor games and outdoor games with little bit structure also helps your child to acquire language. Initially keep games simple

v  Using signs, sign language is a wonderful tool for parents/therapists. Signs act as a visual or concrete cue for the words. Once the child started using signs, insist him to use sign and the word together, fade the signs for mastering the usage of words. (Talking hands CD is very helpful for children with autism in their early years). Visual association is easier with signs

v  Practice rhymes!!!! Our children love songs, you sing song and ask the child to finish the part of the lines

v  Encourage him/her to draw or patch work to help him to remember words.

v  Printed text or sight words is an another concrete way of teaching language to the child, most of our children are hyperlexics they remember printed form much better than spoken words

v  NET: natural environmental training is a best way to teach language( using child’s interests to guide language instruction, teaching activity in the real place, provide little structure generalization is easy)

v  Language instruction has to happen by breaking them in  parts/small chunks

v  Giving practice to understand parts before the whole

v  Echolalia is another way of using language, so be smart make use of your child’s echolalia

v  The research shows motor planning/praxis activities encourages language acquisition( consult with your OT  for the activities)

v  Music therapy also assist your child in the process of acquiring language

v  Respond immediately to his/her words, acknowledging to his words by giving immediate reinforcement

v  When he/she started using words guide him to use phrases by sentence construction activities with pictures

v  Remember repetition is a key to success

 Virtually for our children, significant time and effort put in to treatment is necessary for language to develop. Remember teaching occurs everywhere!!!!! With little bit of structure in the natural environment.

Home, park, beach, hotel

EVERYWHERE