Communication & Interaction in Autism: Using Visual Aids
BROTHERS! That was my first thought when I found out I was pregnant with my second child. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have another boy”, I said to my husband excited by the possibility of my boys riding bikes together, kicking a ball and becoming good mates.
At the 20 week gestation mark I went into premature labour, but we managed to hold off the birth until full term. Finally my son Flynn was born, a brother to Jesse. I was ecstatic…he was healthy with no sign of the struggle he had to endure over the last 20 weeks.
Flynn was a placid baby, he had an infectious smile, enjoyed cuddles and rarely cried. At 15 months developmental milestone were age appropriate. Three clear words were mouthed mum, dad & Jesse. Flynn enjoyed nothing more than having a cricket bat in his hand and the ball thrown to him, everything was going along smoothly, happy families!
Then, premature labour threatening my third baby at 28 weeks, things started to fall apart around this time, I spent a lot of time in and out of hospital and Flynn seemed to grow increasingly withdrawn, crying a lot, would always be lying around and ear infections were rife at this point.
To much delight our daughter Paris was born healthy, however over the next four to six months Flynn’s behaviour was becoming a major concern.
It wasn’t the lack of speech that concerned me the most it was the fact that he never queried where his brother was going when we dropped him of at pre-school, he had an abundance of anxiety when around other family members & friends, did not notice when people walked into a room that he was in and lack of social and play skills.
At two and a half Flynn no longer knew what to do with a cricket bat, lacked fluent speech and was in a world of his own, I took my concerns to our local early childhood clinic and when I mentioned Autism to my relief at the time the clinic nurse kindly told me “he is not Autistic simply shy that is all”. Four months later Flynn was diagnosed by a specialist as mildly Autistic.
The whirlwind starts, I tried frantically to get Flynn into every early intervention available, private ABA Therapy, Speech Pathologists, Occupation Therapists and Sensory Integration Therapy. The two years spent before Flynn started school were a frantic rush running from one therapy to another. Did it help? Yes I think so, Flynn developed some new play & cognitive skills for school however his receptive and expressive language was still less than desirable.
The arrival of communication! After much research and the advice of our wonderful early intervention educations we began to use visuals at home to help Flynn communicate, make his own choices and build his self-esteem.
Photographs of food items were produced to help Flynn learn the labels of food, try new foods, choice-make and eventually communicate his food needs and wants.
A schedule was hung on the back of our front door with photographs of his daily outings to help him understand where he was going that day therefore relieving anxiety and encouraging him to talk about his day. A key ring of different outing photographs has found its place in our car for those unexpected stops.
To encourage play and interaction photographs of different play activities were produced. Through these photographs, Flynn was encourage to interact with his brother and sister, learn new play, academic and social skills, with a visual reward being offered for good and appropriate play.
Flynn’s Speech Therapist described it as a “language explosion”. In no time we went from having virtually no speech to speaking in sentences. Instead of saying no to everything with a visual queue Flynn began to answer yes, most importantly his receptive language (understanding) has come along leaps and bounds.
Through social stories, a wonderful tool for children with language impairments, Flynn learned the rules to help him play soccer, little athletics, NRL football and can be used for just about any scenario.
Brothers! Now they enjoy playing cricket together, snuggle up to a movie together, share a deep love for one another and fight like all siblings do, which is all I ever wanted.
Questions and Answers
Autism Spectrum Disorder goals for interaction looks at methods used to help aid communication and interaction skills in children with autism
Although the medical community is making some advancement in facts about autism and offering reports about autism, a lot of things that are still unclear when it comes to this condition - which makes creating effective treatments very hard. For starters, there's usually absolutely no defined cause; most all cases are considered idiopathic (without recognized cause). We can say for sure that facts about autism normally point to a genetic disorder to be at fault. The symptoms vary wi...
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood.
IN MY 22 YEARS OF HOMEOPATHY PRECISED I COME AC CROSSED MANY PATIENT FOR CHILDREN DISEASE LIKE AUTISM, DYSLEXIA , C. P CHILD HOMEOPATHY LONG TIME TREATMENT WORK VERY WELL. IN HOMEOPATHY MEDICINE ACT SLOW ACTING AND PROGNOSIS MIGHT BE RECOGNIZED AFTER SIX MONTH BUT I ASSURE AFTER LONG TERM TREATMENT AUTISM, DYSLEXIA CHILD, CEREBRAL PALSY CHILD PERMANENTLY CURE Kindly more informations contect :http://www.homeopathyonline.in/cerebral.htm#AUTISAMCHILD
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