non- verbal KIDS.

[Suze]

I,ve just read Lorryw,s thread about her terrible day yesterday <'> <'> ..hugs for Lorry.What struck me was the outburst her son had and being non-verbal he could,nt explain what the matter was.This thread was really to ask how do you cope and manage if your kids are non-verbal.I remember hearing Tony Attwoood speak and he mentioned that some asd kids used signing when they found it too stressful to speak.Does anyone use this?....I guess it,s sign language the same form that the deaf would use.

[Sallya]

Are you thinking about Makaton?

s

xxx

[call me jaded]

My 11 year old is non-verbal. He requires me to read his mind, but I get it wrong!

 

Some children are taught Makaton which is a simplified sign language, but DS's dyspraxia means he does not have the motor planning skills: he cannot clap his hands, wave, or nod or shake his head. Or make a meaningful mark with a pencil.

 

He uses PECS (picture communication) a little. More so at school. At home he takes my hand and puts it on whatever it is he wants doing or sorting out.

 

He can read. He demonstrates this by matching pictures and words and pointing out specific words on a page. He can sequence things (days of the week, etc). He can put sentence strips in the right order to tell a story.

 

We have a computer that gives him an artificial voice (think Stephen Hawking). He is just learning to use this. October half term he gets two weeks holiday, one of which is going to be an intensive programme on the use of his communicator.

 

He has surprisingly few rages considering how frustrating life must be for him. I have always assumed he understands everything I say.

Edited September 7, 2005 by call me jaded

[candy]

I found your post very interesting Jaded, my son is age 5, non verbal and his communication is similar.

His school don't teach sign/makaton preferring PECs too, we don't use it at home because my son associates it with school. When we've tried at home he posts all the symbols under the fridge He also communicates by putting our hands on or towards the things he wants or by leading us to something. Like your son he has surprisingly few rages.

My son enjoys playing games on the computer and leapster some of which involve word matching etc I'd always assumed he was just memorising but possibly he is reading or will be able to as he gets older

Edited September 7, 2005 by candy

[lorryw]

Hello Suze,

My son was taught Makaton at his first school, a speech and language unit. He then was then moved to an SLD school where Makaton wasnt taught. He still has a few signs such as , more, biscuit and drink. We always hoped that he would speak but it just didnt happen. He understands a huge amount of language but his ability to read body language and situations is astounding.

The tantrums didnt come about until he was 14. He was always a fairly placid easy going little lad and they completely floored us. Sadly, we were misinformed by his school as to how to deal with him. We were told to restrain him at the outset which has left us with problems now that he is older. Apparently he had been having rages at school for a while and had assumed that the same was happening at home. At school if he became agitated they simple opened the door to the playground and let him out. Obviously after a while he learnt that to avoid a situation the best way was to fly into a rage. He is slowly improving.

I always assumed that the rages by his inability to comunicate but its interesting to read on this board how many verbal kids have similar rages. I recently contacted an autism behavioural expert who explained that a lot of his behaviour is not autism led, simply a means of controlling a situation.

Im feeling a lot happier now after my grumble this morning

thanks guys

Love Lorainexxxx

[Suze]

HI Guys hope you don,t mind me starting this thread.My son does,nt suffer from these problems .....he is very verbal .........just wondered what stratergies you use and how you cope . <'> <'> is there evidence that those that have been non-verbal for many years eventually do use some speech?...hope you don,t mind me asking

[linsha31]

My Daughter is 12 and is still non verbal ,she uses Makaton symbols at school she will not sign but will exchange symbols at school or fetch the required symbol ,but as much as i try at home with it no luck i have the symbols stuck everwhere but she refuses to budge with them ,she hasnt had a rage for a while now there was a time where every hour of the day she would be flying into a rage but it has become a bit easier and will only occasionaly go for me but with less venom now than before ,she wears ear muffs as sounds effect her ,Makaton symbols are so expensive do i give up at home for a while or step it up a gear ?

[raelien]

I can at least empathise with Suze - my son is also VERY verbal - He physically cant be quiet.

 

He has just started in a class with a girl who is non verbal - He is finding it very strange - I think he understands - the problem is his spoken volume is so very loud - he almost shouts and it is incesant

 

maybe they will help to balance each other out??????????

[smallworld]

Hi,

I've mentioned this bloke before, but Jim Crawford who posts on the paains forum has some really good comments(essays !) on behaviour and the reasons behind it, especially with regard to controlling a situation.

HTH,

 

wac

[Emum]

E is still almost completely non verbal, but is not bad at using PECS. She is just starting to be able to put together very simple sentences with the support of her PECs board, but this is limited to things like "I want biscuit". She would have no chance of being able to explain why she was upset or frustrated about something. Fortunately she usually responds to being cuddled and spoken to in a soothing voice, and quite often we are able to make an educated guess as to what might be upsetting her, but it would be nice to be sure. School also use Makaton but she hasn't picked up on this at all.

[bid]

Hi

 

I actually managed to get along to my local support group today, and was chatting to a mum I've known for about 10 years.

 

She was over the moon, because at the grand old age of 13 her non-verbal son has finally started to talk!

 

Bid

[007paul007]

Hi My son is non verbal and can only make sounds and has no words what so ever , although when he was a baby he did have some words which just all dried up.

One school tried teaching him sign language but it seemed all gobbly gook to him, we get by , at school they use the picture method , I think it is called pecs, not sure exactly .

We get by , we can usually tell if he is not himself by his behaviour , although when he was developing Epilepsy his behaviour went up the wall and we , the school and the doctors did not know what was wrong with him , ended up being put on Respiridone which now we are weaning him off it , just that his body was changing due to his Epilepsy and he could not tell us what was wrong.

We cope and some days are frustrating but most of the time it is as ok as it can be.

[mandyque]

My daughter is 'sort of' non verbal, she has a few phrases that she can say, asking for crisps, yoghurt, raisins, drink and toilet but that is all. We have no chat or talking about things. She occasionally uses PECS but because there hasn't been enough encouragement at school it hasn't become a habit for her. She has a PECS folder at home and I do try but it's damn hard. She understands more than she can say, I have more phrases that she understands, e.g. 'put it on' or 'go in the car' but I have to use the same words, if I said 'dress yourself' she wouldn't understand, if I say 'put it on' she knows to put clothes on.

 

The rest of her vocabulary is odd words she can put to pictures, butterfly, fish, barbie, and echolalia. She watches the same things over and over again and memorises them, her latest one is to copy the 'confused.com' advert which is funny!

 

There is much more going on in her head than she can verbalise though, I was amazed at how easily she learned how to work the computer, within 2 weeks she knew how to switch it on, get into her own account (click butterfly picture), get onto the internet (I set cbeebies as her default homepage) and set CD roms working. Then she knows her way around the cbeebies website and about 4 different games! She's definately not daft!

[Suze]

well done Mandys little d,s ,it gets you so chuffed when they amaze you like that .My son struggles with pretty much everything he tries to do, last week we went to a country fayre, he had a go at archery and using an adult bow got 5 bulls out of 6 arrows.We were so chuffed. (he has a very high visual perception ability)

[Kathryn]

My daughter became completely non verbal for about 3 months between January and March. She would occasionally say phrases from favourite films during this time but there was no spontaneous speech. When distressed or frustrated she would resort to shouting.

 

We developed a few hand gestures eg for "yes" and "no" just so she could get her basic needs met, and for more complex conversations she would spell out words. I made a card with the letters of the alphabet and she would point to each letter in turn - the spelling was always completely accurate! It was a very laborious method of communication but we had no choice.

 

I know some professionals felt she was putting it on, ie choosing not to speak as her understanding was intact and she had always been extremely fluent, in fact "hyperlexic" from a young age. I know this wasn't the case as she would try very hard to say words like "chocolate" in order to get some, but just couldn't manage it.

 

I still don't know what made her speech return when it did, but overall she has not regained the same level of fluency she had for so many years. When stressed, she uses short telegraphic senences eg"what do today?" and appears to have to consciously think about word order, the way a non native English speaker might. It's almost as though verbal expression is a foreign language to her now, and maybe always was. I think if she could, she would choose not to speak.

[Auriel]

what does KIDS stand for