AND SO HE STARTED TALKING... (Part 1)

It's unbelievable how fast the first six months of the year just flew past in a flash. I have been wanting to share this amazing story about Henry...

Henry has been undergoing therapy with me since May 2015. He was six years old at that time. He has Autism and did not use speech to communicate, i.e. non-verbal. His parents had only one goal: SPEECH.

Henry was one of the most silent child I have ever met in my then 7+ year career. He was referred to me by his Occupational Therapist (OT) who had been (and still is) working on his body awareness and motor planning. 

After Initial Assessment, Henry was found to have very limited pre-verbal skills, i.e. visual tracking, auditory tracking, turn-taking, choice making, cause-and-effect, joint attention, and imitation skills. His play skill was at the very basic level of exploratory play. How can a child be verbal when he has limited PRE-verbal skills??

Not an easy 'case'! He was as silent as a mouse; I cannot even try to shape words from sounds...

I went home and cracked my head... I went back to the basics. What is speech made up of?

(1) Intentional exhalation - air has to come out from the lungs (to vibrate the vocal cords for voicing)

(2) Voicing - vibration of the vocal cords to produce sounds

(3) Oral movement - to shape the different sounds as the vibrating air passes through the mouth. This shaping involves the movement of the jaw, lips, tongue and soft palate.

(4) Cognition - for development of some of the pre-verbal skills and for understanding of language. If a child does not have receptive skills for language, he will not be able to use it expressively.

So here is my therapy plan:
While working on his pre-verbal skills and understanding of language, I will...

(1) Teach Henry how to blow (for intentional exhalation)

(2) Teach Henry how to have intentional voicing, i.e. voicing on demand

(3) Teach Henry how to move his jaw, lips and tongue for speech sound movements.

After a year of regular weekly sessions, Henry was finally able to blow! Oh yes... finally... to me, this is one step closer to having speech. I was overjoyed!

However, to his parents, Henry is still not talking... now what?

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