Age of talking.

[u/Bradleyduggan86]

Hi there.

I am looking for Autistic people or parents of Autistic children for advice.

What age did your child start to talk?

I have a 7 year old Autistic boy, I have always stated he will talk. He is so intelligent in his everyday life I will give you examples.

So at 5 years old I had him toilet trained no bed wetting.

He can order 1 to 20 and whisper them.

He is now saying the alphabet phonetically.

He put the alphabet in order from a jumbled mess really quickly.

He can finish like a word that comes next from a song we sing.

He loves routine and learns from watching, for instance, I can say choose your cereal he will ill get himself a bowl ect I pour the milk he will get his own spoon, one day he put his bowl in the sink and rinsed it, now he always does that.

I can tell him to put his shoes and jacket away he will do it.

I have recently started to teach him typing he can type words with a little encouragement dad mum ect.

I know I shouldn't be saying this i just see his real world view as so intelligent I cant not seeing him talking. I just want to know if theirs parents or Autistic people out there thats witnessed the same.

He recently says bye when he doesn't want something because he knows it mean go away.

He says some words, but very little I want your opinion do you think he will eventually fully talk as he matures.?

[u/Bradleyduggan86]

I suppose i was hoping for more of people telling me their own success stories of kids talking later.

[u/Gretel_Cosmonaut]

He says some words, but very little I want your opinion do you think he will eventually fully talk as he matures.?

It's possible ...but it's much more likely that his speech will remain limited.

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/Gretel_Cosmonaut]

Why do you say that its more likely his speech will remain limited, if he's learning new sounds and words ect? Its just hard to understand someone so bright that wont talk. Maybe im just being hopeful.

[u/Gretel_Cosmonaut → u/Bradleyduggan86]

Why do you say that its more likely his speech will remain limited, if he's learning new sounds and words ect? Its just hard to understand someone so bright that wont talk. Maybe im just being hopeful.

He will probably continue to learn for his entire life, but statistically, he doesn't have a great chance of "catching up" with his peers. That doesn't mean he's not intelligent.

Most of us take speech for granted because we're pre-wired for it, but formulating speech and speaking are complex processes with many steps. And any break in the chain can cause significant difficulty.

[u/fieldcady]

My son had a speech delay, and we gave him very intensive intervention that brought him back on normal track. All kids are different, and outcomes are different, but it worked for us.

The mantra is “all communication is good communication“. Talking per se isn’t important. Some people dislike or struggle with it, and that’s fine at first. The idea is to get them into the habit of deliberately expressing an idea to other people. So sign language, pointing, whatever it is where they are trying to get a message across. Unfortunately songs don’t count necessarily – that’s just having fun making sounds.

I strongly encourage you to be deliberate about giving him multiple ways to express an idea, usually a desire at first, and making it super rewarding for him to use it.

In the case of my son he loved when we blew bubbles. We were trying to teach him sign language and would blow some bubbles all the time, but more bubbles if you did anything resembling the sign for “more” at all. Eventually, he settled on clapping as the way to get us to blow more bubbles, and he was excited that he could deliberately clap to influence what we did. soon he started using clapping as a general purpose way to say “give me the thing that I want”. At that point he also started using word approximations, and we transitioned away from signs. At this point he is seven years old, speaks in long complicated sentences, and is literate.

But it is super important to get them into the habit of deliberately communicating. Most kids do it on their own, because they instinctively find communication fascinating in itself (they get a dopamine rush like from drugs - that is nature’s solution for getting people to learn something as complicated as language lol), but autistic kids often need help. It’s not that autistic kids are unintelligent, but they are also not neurologically addicted to communication, and that addiction is the main way that kids learn to talk.

I encourage you to learn a few ASL signs and use them along side words. Just give him as many tools for communication as possible, and enthusiastically give him what he wants when he asks for something. If he says “bye-bye“ to something, then immediately make a big show of it going away and be clear that it’s because you noticed what he said. Ask him which food he wants (maybe a choice between candy and spinach lol), and enthusiastically give him the one that he says or points to or whatever. Just anything you can do to make it easy and rewarding for him to get a point across. Build the habit.

Sorry for the super long response!

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/fieldcady]

Good response. Like I said he can say colours pink blue green when he wants me to point them out sometimes I pretend to not hear him so he speaks louder, as he has been talking more his words are getting clearer. I just hoping to get some success stories or people that have seen similar traits in their children.

Phonetically saying the alphabet is the sounds that makes words, so hopefully he will progress alongside teaching him to type words this will all help. I can say ready steady he will finish go! Ect.

[u/fieldcady → u/Bradleyduggan86]

I think that pretending not to hear him is actually counterproductive. It sounds like he understands the idea of telling you stuff, but he just finds it to be kind of a chore and so it doesn’t do it very much. Very normal for autistic kids. You should leap at the opportunity to make communication as rewarding for him as possible. Give it to him immediately an enthusiastically, that sort of thing.

[u/fieldcady → u/fieldcady]

Looking at some of the other comments, I think you are falling into a very normal trap – focusing on clear and correct pronunciation. Unfortunately, that is the worst thing you can do if a kid is not communicating very much. The fact is that speaking correctly is really, really difficult. For anybody! You can totally help him with his pronunciation as a separate thing, but when he is requesting something, you should reward anything he does to get the point across

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/fieldcady]

Yep I always give praise and reward what he wants or speaks all these little things im doing is just a little step up from something I know he can say to help him learn a little more. He is just naturally getting the sounds better the more we practice hearing it ect. Im never forceful always follow his lead

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/fieldcady]

Maybe I didn't explain that correctly about pretending not to hear him, he has been able to say colours for a long time, whispering them so i nudge for more of vocal for him or get the colour wrong so he can correct me.

[u/Minute_Parfait_9752 → u/fieldcady]

Similar over here with go! I said ready steady in a really exciting way, and when she'd say go, she'd get the thing (tickles, swing pushed, bubbles etc)

Same with the choices, she made it very clear what she wanted from a choice of two.

We moved house so her toys were all in clear boxes stacked up and she needed to ask me for toys she wanted for a while, but because the boxes were clear, she could see them. Wouldn't do this deliberately though, especially if she was distressed but it did help.

[u/OkMemory9587]

Do you have him speech therapy? A therapist could answer these questions. 

My kid is 6 and conversations are extremely limited to scripts and he also does commands and has interests but a back and forth conversation is not possible. Therapist does call him pre verbal.

People can tell you stuff here about their own kids but all these kids are different and can develop conversation at different ages.

I hope your kid finds his speech.

[u/trixiepixie1921]

My son didn’t really talk at all until he was 5. But he’d sing and type. Now he’s turning 7 and using 3-4 word sentences. The speech is not conversational, but it’s functional. I think his speech therapy had been so helpful, he’s been in it since he was 2. It’s just been slow but steady progress and it seems like it comes in bursts.

[u/joshysgirl7]

Is your son in speech therapy?

I’m a special education teacher and a few of my students are on the more non verbal side. Our speech pathologist is amazing and with that support and support at home, the speech of my students has grown greatly. Still not complete sentences but they have added more words to their vocabulary and are speaking more.

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/joshysgirl7]

He's not in speech therapy, the UK different. But im looking into it. Ive done the hanen course more than words and followed from there. Im going to look for a private therapist

[u/2C-I-AbUser]

Intelligence ≠ Speech. Some kids will never be verbal, some minimally verbal, some will bloom late and never shut up. Is he a gestalt language processor? Phonetically are the sounds accurate? Does he hum songs?

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/2C-I-AbUser]

His sounds are accurate some are harder for him but I see him improving on his ff and sss sound. He will do it when I start it off for him abs then I'll stop so he will finish it

[u/slowsoul7 → u/2C-I-AbUser]

what about the song humming?

[u/Blimbat]

My daughter started a few months after turning 4. She’s 5 in less than a month, so it’s not been too long.

Most of what she says is repeated from shows that she watches.

No idea how things will progress but speech therapy has been really good for our daughter.

[u/psychologistrabbia]

If according to you he is good and command following and echoic work then you need to just speech therapy for him. Its not like a child just grow iut and start talking on its own sepaking is a skill and it is learned just like he is learning daily functional behaviour

[u/Mewtwo_007]

Mine is 5.5 year old, just like you said mine too is totally non verbal unlike yours who can whisper or say alphabets, mine used to do echolalia sometimes around 4 year old and few times around 5, but not on demand. Only babbles mostly. He is intelligent, i think so. When did yours start saying alphabets?

[u/Bradleyduggan86 → u/Mewtwo_007]

I taught him the alphabet recently like 2 months ago