 | Gentry White is the owner and lead therapist for Southeast Kansas Speech Pathology Services in Pittsburg Kansas. She received her Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1998 and her Master of Arts in Audiology and Speech Sciences degree from Michigan State University in 2001. She has been practicing Speech-Language Pathology in southeast Kansas since moving to Pittsburg in 2001. Gentry resides in the Pittsburg area with her husband and children. She can be contacted through her website www.sekspeech.com or her office phone at 620-232-2990. |
Speech Pathology
2013-03-25 16:18:24
Can speech pathology help with autism?
Q-Can speech therapy help with autism? My 2 year old is showing some signs, though not yet formally diagnosed.
A-It is good to never get “hung up” on the diagnosis of any particular patient. Behaviors and symptoms that the child is exhibiting is what constitutes a treatment plan after the intial evaluation. Autism is a broad area and in the last 10 years has become a familiar term. There are certain language and speech milestones that a two-year-old should be meeting in his development that I would use as a guideline for whether an evaluation is warranted for your son.
By two-years of age, your child should be in a language “boom” of learning from his caregivers as well as from his environment. There are two types of language forms; receptive language, which means understanding verbal and nonverbal communication and expressive language, which means his speech output and this includes gestures and signs. I will give several examples of language understanding below.
Children this age should be able to follow commands within their environment such as, “please bring me your red shoes.” He should be pointing to around 5-10 parts of his body when asked. During story reading, a typical two-year-old should be able to identify familiar objects in the story (show me the cow, the house, etc.). He should demonstrate an understanding of “no” to protect him within his environment and should demonstrate an understanding of familiar songs/rhymes during play activities. There should be more awareness of social skills and your son’s receptive language should be higher at this age before his expressive language can catch up because of his physical development of his articulatory system.
Expressive language is getting ready to catch up to receptive language by this point in a child’s development. By two years, your son should be utilizing two-word phrases such as, “black cat” or “dog jumps” to describe an appropriate activity. He should be utilizing gestures or signs to identify his own needs/wants within his environment. He should be naming body parts following identification when pointing to himself during activities. At this point, he may have unintelligible speech but should begin clarifying information when caregivers indicate that they do not understand what he said during communicative attempts.
If you are concerned that there is difficulty with language development in his receptive or expressive language, please visit with your physician about obtaining a speech and language evaluation. It never hurts to have an evaluation to see where his skills are compared to his peers. Thank you for your inquiry.
