RE: Kids w/ Classic Autism, PDD-NOS & Speech Delays

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I did flash cards and read a lot to my son at a very early age before I knew he was autistic. He would often scream and try to take the cards and books from me while I read. I didn't want to be bullied by a baby so I kept on reading in spite of him and sometimes he'd stop screaming long enough to enjoy the book or learn something. His special interests were letters and numbers so sometimes I could bypass the fit by choosing things that focused on letters or numbers. He still does this but for different reasons than he did when he was younger and I cut way back on reading to him just because he can make it so difficult, now he'll give me a hard time because he wants to play computer games or watch a TV show instead ... but lately I've found it's just because wants to be in control of the book, he wants to be the one holding it and turning pages and reading all the words he knows so I'll probably start reading more again. He can read a lot of simple words but I don't know to what extent because he's so uncooperative. He asked for his flash cards the other day and had a tantrum because he read the word "jacks" as "jet" and would not accept being corrected (granted the drawing of the jack looked sort of like a jet). I can't just sit and go through the cards with him any more, he makes it too difficult so we only do a little bit here and there. Many of the TV shows and games he plays are also focused on teaching him to read.

Last edited by Washi on 10 Jan 2012, 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

He was never big on eating his books though he did eat a chunk out of one when he was much younger. I can leave books in his room and some times I'll find him reading to himself, he makes stuff up for the parts he doesn't know which can be amusing.

My kiddos' books and flashcards are all in their playroom, so they can study the words and pictures on their own. I think that this helps a lot.

We have a lot of reading videos and computer games, too. (The kids are now signed up for more computer-based programs than they can actually finish--including a free trial sign up with www.readingeggs.com yesterday and a sign up with a $ 9.95/mo. membership through http://www.looneytunesphonics.com/.)

I would not be surprised if I was hyperlexic and taught myself to read. I remember always having my head in a book, but I don't remember the actual process of learning.

I know that reading is key to my kid's speech improvement and that there are case studies which suggest that it can be used to scaffold the learning of speech in a child with classic autism.

My kid used to have access to all his books and flash cards but his favorite activity is pulling them all out and covering the floor with them. We have hundreds of books. His father left him gated and unattended for a while in the living room once because I needed a nap, he emptied and mixed up over a dozen boxes of flash cards. There were about a thousand of them. That was a fun mess to wake up to. If I don't clean up the mess in a timely manner he will inevitably spill his drink on the cards and destroy them.

I understand that. I have the flashcards in a drawer for a reason--they usually dump stuff within sight on the floor. I also have to keep games with a bunch of pieces put up.

We always have a bunch of books on the floor, table, and sofa in the playroom. I pretty much just put them all back up at the end of each day.

My older son spends very little time playing with toys even though we have plenty of these to play with. It's mostly looking through books, watching videos, playing educational computer games, drawing, and playing outside. Sometimes he and his brother will play with a toy or look at a book together.

Incidentally, my meeting with the school people and teachers went okay. They wanted to cut math tutoring by 15 minutes per day, but I said "no."

A year ago, my son was really struggling with math, then I bought a much of math picture books and math DVDs and worked with him a lot. I told them that I would probably try to work with my son on math, but I didn't want to make a committment to do this, and that reducing services at school places a burden on the home.

They were very nice and said that he had made amazing progress since starting at the elementary school.

Maisy, now thats an excellent idea, he likes the one Maisy book we have which is a bedtime story, he will engage with it, its effectively a social story for him.

There are also some great Maisy videos out there. My younger son used to love them. I think that they may be closed captioned. (I cannot find mine in order to look for the "closed captioned" symbol and may have let a friend borrow them.) Great for speech.

My younger son also loved the Spot videos, which have great lift the flap books that go with them. These are closed captioned and both the videos and books are good for speech.

You might also try Kipper videos if you prefer a British accent--very similar, and they also have toddler books that go along with them.

Additionally, there are often ABC videos (often super-cheap on Amazon.com) that feature favorite cartoon characters from books and that introduce basis vocabulary.

Examples of Word Books and Picture Dictionaries (for anyone reading who doesn't know what these things are):

http://www.amazon.com/Beginner-Book-Dic ... 030&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Curious-Dictionar ... 072&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Maisys-Amazing-Wo ... 108&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/First-Words-Pictu ... 151&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.com/First-1000-Words- ... 203&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Disney-First-1000 ... 248&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.com/My-First-Dictiona ... 248&sr=1-7

http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Pict ... 334&sr=1-1

My autistic son used to take all the books off his shelf and throw them on the floor. Now it's my one-year-old that does it.

One issue my son had with books is, if he got his hands on a paperback, he'd just sit there flipping the pages looking at the page numbers only. Sometimes even with board books, he'd only look at the page numbers. I haven't seen him do this for a while.

My older son mostly just looks at the pictures if he is not being directed in his reading. However, lately, sometimes he actually reads the pages. (He reads aloud to himself or to his brother and may say, "Wow!" or "I didn't know that." We have both fiction and non-fiction picture books and everything is actually organized like a little library with labeled shelves and all).

www.superduperinc.om

I just got some computer software for speech from the above website. The software is really good and easy to use for both kids. (Just click on answers with a mouse--no keyboard use).

The site also has a bunch of apps and flashcards.

The kids' ABA therapist and my friend with ASD twins both like this website, too, for speech materials.

My son has suddenly become the "label king." Before it was just nouns, but now it's verbs and adjectives, too. For example, if I'm wearing a red shirt he will say, "red." Or he will pick up a piece of pizza, say, "eat," and then start eating it.

Even emotions. Once when he was crying he said, "sad."

Did any of your kids go through something like this? I hope it's a good sign.

I think it's a great sign. Mine did and now he says "What's the matter? Why are you so sad?" to us as part of his scripted repertoire of conversation (we're not actually sad). He also says to anyone and everyone including strangers "You found me! How are you, I'm so glad to see you.". He still doesn't know how to answer a question like "what is your name?" though, he just repeats what you say. But he's changing fast.

He's suddenly been much more interested and cooperative with reading.... He let me quiz him today with some flash cards that I'd never really tried to work with with him before, I covered the picture and only let him see the word until he read it ... and he really did a great job. I could never be sure how much he knew when going through books with him because he could just be using the pictures as cues and tends to memorize his favorite books anyway.

And today for the first time we were in a store and he said "potty?" and we weren't close to the bathroom and I was waiting for his Dad to stop shopping and accompany us to the bathroom, but Dad was dawdling and I thought we'd miss the opportunity to go ... but he said "potty?" a second time and that got Dad moving so we made it to the bathroom and he went pee pee in a public bathroom for the first time tonight! He has sensory issues in public bathrooms, the noises used to really set him off but he made it through without incident! He usually doesn't tell me when he has to go I just guess when he has to go and bring him to the toilet mostly and get most of the pee done in there now, poop still almost always winds up in the diaper.

This is all good stuff. My son still cannot answer "What's your name?" either. Lately for some reason he is answering every question with "cheese." I don't know if it's his attempt at a joke or if he doesn't feel like answering questions.

He still doesn't tell us when he has to go to the bathroom, ever. He just starts squatting and grunting...once we get back to the US we are going to start the training. I still have not bought tickets but it looks like it will be the first week of February at this point.

Sounds like everyone is doing great! My younger son, Heath, still doesn't go potty on his own most of the time, either. He depends upon me to take him to the bathroom at regular intervals. If I forget or put it off, he has an accident. At least he's actually using the potty when I get him into the bathroom, though, and he takes care of business pretty quickly.

That's funny. Sometimes mine will shake his hands and say "Cheese!" when he wants to watch "Wallace and Gromit" because that's something the main character does. Heaven forbid I should actually offer him a piece of cheese though, offering him new foods makes him mad.

My decision to start potty training was because he was no longer terrified of sitting on the potty, he didn't tell me had to go and he has no cues, he only started telling me after he started doing it. If yours will tolerate sitting on either the toilet or potty without a meltdown regardless of communication issues then I think you're good to go. I won't lie though, the first few weeks were rough ... but not as bad as I think it could have been if I'd taken what I think is the standard approach for potty training a child with autism.... Seems to me a lot of people hole up in the bathroom with their kids for hours trying to get them to fill up on liquids and waiting for them to pee, I think I'd have given up if I did it that way. He used the kiddy potty for the first ten days or so (being able to have a potty in any room of the house helped me keep my sanity because he could take all day to go) and now that he's got the hang of it he likes to use the big toilet.