Critical skills to teach a child on the spectrum

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Yeah, it's a real struggle. I remember being terrified of not being able to communicate. This mixed with the anxiety caused by the quick pace of neurotypical communication, makes it almost impossible to clearly express myself. These days I am a slow talker. I'm not afraid to take my time with my words even if it is frustrating for others. It is important to keep your voice honest. Quick responses may cover silences, but at a cost of genuineness. So let him take the time to accurately express himself.

The ability to ride a bike and take public transit. Both of these have give me a great deal of personal independence.

Learning how to read. Visual language is the foundation of my language skills -- without that foundation, I suspect I would have severe language defecits rather than mild ones.

Personal safety skills beyond childhood. How to stay safe often changes as a person gets older, especially as levels of independence increase. A lot of my knowledge/skill in this area was gained through experience and the teaching/explaining others did after something had already happened (usually in response to whatever happened because they were there and intervened or in response to hearing about it) .... it would have been better if I could have been taught more beforehand.

Hi, I apologize for the late response. Could you share how you learned to read ? I am not hung up on speech much, anymore, but do want him to learn to read and communicate.

What advise would you give me in this regard ? How can I help him learn to read ? He has poor receptive language so I am really worried about him. TIA for any feedback you can give me. Very gratefully and much appreciated !

Teach him how to pick up chicks like a boss. All of the 5 year olds girls will be chasing him at recess in no time.


But seriously though, when he gets older, actually teach him something about dating and what to do and how to talk to girls you're interested in. You don't wanna be like my parents, they never taught me s**t when it came to dating.

Teach him to communicate 'no', and expect that his 'no' will be listened to.

I've encountered many autistic kids with communication issues who have been taught to request things they want, but aren't taught how to refuse something they don't want. And when they refuse through behaviour, they get in trouble.

You said he is pre-verbal so I'm not sure how much help I will be, but I wish I could have known how to make conversation, how to handle myself in social situations and how to set boundaries... and maybe this post will be better for parents of children on the spectrum, in general.
For example, in 8th grade, I was with this boy and someone asked me how we were doing/if we were together. Before that point it had never occurred to me to ask something like that- follow-up questions. I think my biggest piece that I didn't get was what to do in social situations and how to make/continue conversation. I'm okay at it now, but I really wish I could have had someone teach me that as a child. I was always verbal but my mother (who I lived with from age 6) did not teach me anything, socially.

I'm sorry, but I don't really know how I learned to read. I don't remember it as a conscious process the way I remember learning other things. All I remember is suddenly seeing how to pattern-match my mom's voice to the text on the page of a book she was reading to me one day (much like reading music) and being hugely excited about it.

Comprehension was a separate piece from decoding, and much more difficult, but it came a lot easier with written language than auditory. I think that being able to see the patterns in language visually was a big part of what made it so much easier. (Most kids figure out what single words mean and then figure out how to string them together -- the way I learned was sort of the opposite.)



For making meaningful associations between words and things, all I can think of is trying to expose him to lots of word + image/object pairings in his everyday life. You could maybe try labelling things with their written words (using actual labels with words written on them that you can attach to ordinary objects -- or just by writing on them, I suppose), turning captions on whenever the TV or a video is on, or giving him a picture dictionary.

I think you've said in previous posts that your son likes music....unless he only likes instrumental, maybe you could look for kids' music videos that show the objects and actions in the songs simultaneously with the lyrics on the screen (or try to make some)?

This isn't a suggestion about reading, but: have you ever tried singing things to him instead of ordinary talking? Some autistic people seem to do better with processing/understanding singing than ordinary speech, so it might be worth a try -- especially if singing gets his attention more effectively than speech or other attempts at communication. (My mom would sometimes use songs to communicate with me when ordinary talking wasn't working and I just didn't understand her -- I'm not sure if this worked for the same reasons or in the same ways that putting words to songs seems to help other ASDers with language.)