Teaching my son to speak identify

Mama

MYson was already two years old and he could only utter for milk and which he barely used, and the alphabet which I taught him since he was a baby. He did dede not have eye contact and did not respond when his name was called. I guess he did not even know that it was his name. A s p e e c h - l a n g u a g e what we are doing, especially and learned to respond when pathologist helped Lico to when we are with our son. his name was called. find his voice to talk and even This was a bit challenging as This method helped my son respond to the shows he was we have to consciously and to identify and differentiate watching on YouTube Kids. It make an effort to describe things. It also helped him learn was life-changing and a relief what we are doing. It’s like that there are different words to us knowing that our child telling our son what we are to describe our actions. Over can speak but just doesn’t doing with our every move. I time, my son would say what know how. He was taught how have to say it when I need to he is doing. to use his mouth and his voice. stand up or sit, or when I need Our speech pathologist to go to the toilet and say what We l abeled or named at the time taught us how to I am doing in the toilet. everything in our house. encourage our son to speak We have to name ourselves Whenever we eat, we name and verbalize his thoughts. and use them at the beginning first the things on the table. Here are some of the tips he of the sentence. I would say When we give him the spoon, taught us: “Mama, is going to stand up.” we say the word “spoon.”

Using this method, especially We used this method i n The speech pathologist when we say his name helped everything we do.

Verbalize everything told us to say and describe him identify with his name Labeling helped my son

Labeling

the things and what they are used for. It also helped him in asking for the right thing and correctly using them. The first thing he asked for when he was learning to talk was milk. He came up to me while I was washing the dishes and when asked what he wanted, he answered “milk.” It started from there and i t eventually l ed to more words being spoken depending on his needs and wants.

My son was then able to name things on his own and even gave his preferred names to his grandparents, and nicknames to his aunts and uncles.

Whenever my son was watching his nursery rhyme shows, I would sing along with it even though he is not singing. When we are not watching the shows, I would sing the nursery rhymes and encourage him to sing along.

Watching the shows many times made him memorize them and we would sing them together. We then progressed to me singing the first part and I would intentionally stop, then he would continue the song.

Singing helped my son with the verbalization of the words and his pronunciation. It also became a mouth and tongue exercise for him to strengthen them and his jaw to pronounce other difficult words. My son is a visual learner,

Pictures so he learns fast when words are accompanied by pictures. We bought him a l ot of picture books and read them

Singing along

with him. This widened his vocabulary and helped him with his sight-reading. This is how he learned to read.

The pictures also helped my son with his perspective on things. He learned that an umbrella can have many colors or that there are different kinds of cake. This was helpful as he became specific in describing things such as saying “yellow umbrella” instead of just “umbrella.” This was how we progressed from one word to two words. To encourage my son to Coaching and parroting talk, I had to coach him. This means I have to tell him what to say. I say “milk” and tell him to say “milk” also. We started with this method and then he proceeded, on his own, to parroting or saying exactly what I say. I then give him the proper response that he should say when I ask him the particular question. For example, I ask him “What do you want?” he would say “What do you want?”, then I would say “Give me milk” and he would say “Give me milk”.

Parroting and coaching him on what to say in various situations helped him what to say in specific situations. He was able to identify what he wants and needs. Now, he is learning to construct his responses according to situations. To progress from two

Fill in the blanks words into three or more words in a sentence, I used the fill in the blanks method, especially if he does not respond to my question. I would first wait for his response before I use this method. Then I would say the first word and then pause to wait for him to complete the sentence. For example, if he wanted some food but does not say what he wants, I say “Give…” and pause, then he would complete the sentence by saying “Give me orange juice”.

By doing so, he would be encouraged to talk and to think about the response that he should say.

These are just methods I use to help my son talk and it is still better to consult a speech pathologist as they can create a program that will suit a child’s learning capability. Remember that each child is unique.

I enjoin everyone t o have more compassion and understanding for all children with different abilities.

I would also like to hear the experiences of other parents who have children on the autism spectrum. You may e mail me a t genevieveaiza. delacruz@ gmail. com. I am a member of t he Autism Society Philippines (ASP), a national non- profit organization dedicated to the well-being of persons on autism spectrum disorder./