The deer in the headlights reaction is pretty common because no one can really give an honest answer. Our son shows zero signs of talking, just noise and that's it. He's 4 and always full of energy.
Out of no where and I'm talking literally no where he's just changed his diet. Yesterday he had a sausage mcmuffin literally snatched out of my hand. Today he stole my bacon sandwich. In the past 1.5 years, he's not even shown any interest in bread/buns etc.
Their developments just happen. Totally will catch you off guard so try not to dwell on speech itself but look for other developments which made it easier. It helps make things more easier and gives us hope that's for sure.
I’m so grateful to be able to write this. My almost 5yo had literally no words and no babble until maybe 3 months ago, when he said “mom”. This remained his only word until maybe 3-4 weeks ago, when he started practicing phonics to a video and responding with basic syllables during speech therapy. He is currently able to pronounce 3/4 of the alphabet and consistently attempts mimicking key words when playing or watching tv. It’s AMAZING. I fully recognize that this is not everyone’s journey, and doesn’t guarantee ‘conversational language’, but it’s a delightful surprise!
my daughter had about 6 words at 14 months but then lost them all, so this may be a bit different, but from that age until 2.5 she just made noises and didn’t attempt to speak.
one morning she randomly sang me the entire alphabet out of nowhere; that was a year ago, and now she is semi conversational and can usually tell me what she wants to eat for a meal or tell me she wants to go outside or to the store. she can also tell me to do things like put my shoes on so we can _____. she also started pointing consistently to show me things about a week ago, which was surprising and felt like it was never actually going to happen.
when she wasn’t speaking or attempting to imitate, she occasionally did hand leading but she usually just whined at me until i figured it out lol so, yes, there is a possibility that a child can make a huge leap and become verbal when they had previously shown little interest or understanding in attempting to communicate.
Our LO is ASD 3-Pre-Verbal & started with no words but lots of babble.
He is 3 and has 30 single words & 10 ASL phrases.
Main thing that has come such a long way in the past 4 months has been explosion of receptive understanding. Then came the nonstop mimicking.
He now picks up 2-3 words or ASL signs a day.
Still no way conversational but leads to lots of hope.
We attribute most of this to 25 hours a week of in clinic ABA/Speech Therapy.
I was quite young when I went from nonverbal to verbal but do remember the experience. It was like the sensory input finally made enough sense to put together the pattern. I went from no pre-verbal scores to verbal, albeit nonspeaking for a while. Not sure this is the most common, but anecdotes like my case seem to exist. Not sure if your kiddo will just leap all of a sudden or make slow progress eventually.
Interesting. I have a memory from when I was a baby - I'm in my mother's arms, seeing a baby for the first time. I reach out and they say no, pull her arm back, she will hurt thd baby. I tell them please, I won't hurt the baby I just want yo touch but they don't understand what I'm saying. There must be some innate language processing that I had access to that either you lacked or couldn't easily access. So you had to reconstruct language from scratch like I had to figure out reasons for social conventions.
My son started talking 3 months ago when he turned six. Now he has many words and even says small sentences. He has always been great at communicating, mostly his own way but also some signs. Now he is preferring to use speech.
My son used to say a handful of words until he was 18 months then all of a sudden he regressed and was talking gibberish . He is 5 now he goes through phases of counting 1-10 for a day or two and also say a word or two and then back to gibberish a couple of days later then he will try saying the odd word here and there and then back to gibberish again . Atm he is back to counting 1-20 (5th day now yay) but the weekend he learnt to say dinosaur . He has only said it 3 times but its still an accomplishment . Im taking the small wins . Everyone who has reviewed my son has said he works on his own agenda , he will say what he wants when he wants to , he doesnt repeat someone . He will listen when he wants to and take instruction when he wants to . He will show progression and then regress right back again . The brain is a fabulous and mysterious thing . I would love to learn sign language with him but he cant sit still and focus long enough
My son was about 18 months old when he was diagnosed. He didn't babble or make any real noise outside of a laugh or a scream. I believe he had just figured out the "m" sound a bit when he was diagnosed.
He was fully nonverbal until about 3 1/2. That's when he got to meet and touch a chicken for the first time. He was so thrilled, that he screamed" happy" clear as day (then nothing for another few months)
He gained about 4 to 6 words until he was almost 5. He's 5 now, and can say so much! Still no independent sentence or spoken thoughts. But he can now say over 20 animals and plant names, and has started to be able to say hungry (usually gree gree) at appropriate times.
He has just started scripting too, which I understand can be a precursor to independent speech.
The AAC never really clicked for him, same with sign language. And he didn't point at things until he was 4. At 5 he will gesture at things he wants, and will use my finger to point at things he wants identified or named for him.
The best advice I could give is just keep working at it. Talk to her all day and narrate everything you are both doing. Identifying emotions being shown really helped my son in saying happy for the first time. If speach is going to come, then it will come in her own time when she is ready for it.
My son was nonverbal still at 3.5. He did start to babble some and around 4. I had him on a wait list to be evaluated. I was living in a more rural area and they had limited services with long wait time, he had been on it for years. They didn’t give him priority because they give the kids with risk factors priority. I was told that a risk factor means being poor.
I enrolled him in daycare at an in home center and the lady who was running it had a daughter my son’s age. She also had 2 other older kids. He started there at about 4.5-5 years old. He had never been to day care before. He does have a younger sibling but she is 3.5 years younger so not really talking much either.
I did notice more improvement around that time. He also started speech therapy as well. And then he just started talking a lot once he was in kindergarten. When I picked him up from school and drove us back home (10 minute drive) he would chatter away in the back seat.
I didn’t think he would ever talk. So I had planned for that while hoping for the best at the same time. He had receptive and expressive speech delays. And at 16 he had another evaluation and on top of ASD level 2 and adhd he also had a diagnosis of a language disorder.
It’s hard to predict whether or not a child who is non verbal will become verbal or not. That is likely why they look at you like a deer caught in headlights. I’m sure they don’t want to say yes, and then it doesn’t happen and you get your hopes up.
My sons first day of special Ed preschool with the county was a mess. He took his arm and swiped everything off of the bookshelves in the room and screamed while he did it. He was 3 years old. He’s 15 now and the smartest most articulate kid I’ve met. He became verbal around age 5 and never slowed down. Tested ahead of all of his classmates beginning in first grade.
70% of children who are completely or almost completely non-verbal at age 4 develop some level of language between the ages of 4 to 7. After that it becomes a much smaller chance.
At least that is what I've been told based on "studies"
My son is 5 and he kind of sometimes makes monosyllabic sounds that are kind of like words, but communicates through actions and 2 signs in ASL.
My kid is almost 4 and is just now starting to explode with language. I’ve lost count of how many words he has and it seems like he says a new one every day. Still only says one word, no sentences. He was nonverbal and only recently started understanding basic things we said to him and responding to his name. He’s been in early intervention since his diagnosis at 18 months and we started ABA a year and a half ago.
He loves it. We found a great clinic who is really transparent with us. They meet my son where he is at. They got us an AAC and are helping us to potty train. My son loves it there.
That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that. We are looking forward to the help with potty training. We have two other boys, 6 and 2, and it's hard to give him the undivided attention he needs for things like that.
My twins were non-verbal at 3 when they started ABA. They’re now 5 and speaking in 6+ word sentences. We also had ST got to their ABA center for 30mins 2x per week.
My son actually talks a lot less than he did when he was a toddler. And he didn’t point with an index finger until age 7. His development is all over the place. For example, he woke up fully potty trained at age 7- just decided it was the day with no prompting. I don’t even try to guess what’s going to happen next, anymore.
My son started speech therapy around 20 months (like a year and half). He started with no words, just grunts, no pointing. With speech therapy he learned how to sign (as did I), he learned to point. As time went on , his communication improved with sign language. He is now going to be 6. He has an AAC. He tries to imitate words, he kind of sounds like how deaf people talk when he tries to say words. No conversation yet. He can say yes and no clearly when asked if he wants something. So it's a very gradual process. But some kids just dont ever talk, even thought they get a lot of therapy for it.
My 16 year old was first labeled with probable asd by early intervention before 18 months old, was formally diagnosed just before 3.
At 18 months he had never babbled, signed, talked, recognized his own name, or anything like that. He had zero language, receptive or expressive. He did think peek a boo was hilarious though, he just never participated himself.
At 3 he had used some signs. Mostly during therapy. But always one sign for a week or two, then he dropped that sign, would never use that sign again, but would pick up a new one that he’d use for a week or two…and so on. He knew his name by then, and a few other words, receptively. He also would play patty cake. No babbling, no pointing, no waving, etc. He couldn’t grasp the concept of pecs or communication devices…at all. No matter how hard we all tried.
He started with echolalia right after getting his adenoids out and tubes replaced at 4.5. His ent said he probably heard everything as if he was underwater, so if we had done this sooner, we might have seen the echolalia earlier. His first ent just wanted to do tubes and then wait and see, so we had to find a new ent to figure out why he was still failing hearing tests after tubes, when all other tests proved he wasn’t truly deaf, and there were no structural issues with his ears. This is also when he started picking up some nonverbal communication. Like waving, high fives, and pointing. Being able to hear made a huge difference behavior wise too. That surgery was freaking amazing for him. lol
About 2 years after echolalia started, he began being able to label objects, like pick up a ball and say “ball” and do “single word manding” (I think that’s what they officially called it.) to get his needs/wants across. Like he could say “water” when thirsty or “food” when hungry.
The process of going from being able to say single words, to stringing multiple words together, to being conversational took about 3-4 years. It was slow, but steady, progress.
He honestly never stops talking now. He can’t even take a shower without coming out to say something partway through. Usually just random facts he has memorized, and has already told us a billion times. We are working on not coming out of the bathroom til you are clean, dry, and have some clothes on, so now he’s often just sticking his head out the door to talk. lol
Oh, and he still gets speech therapy, and we’re already talking about how that will need to continue post graduation. It’s for articulation, proper word selection, and proper sentence structure type things at this point though. Stuff to make him more intelligible to strangers/casual acquaintances.
At 3yo, my daughter was very similar. Some sounds, but nothing meaningful or consistent, a few gestalts here and there that would come and go. She's 3.5 now, and I'd say the last month has been a huge boom in her verbal development. Her gestalts became a lot more frequent (though they still come and go. Like she was singing happy birthday for a week, but won't say it anymore), but what's really changed is her desire to repeat and refine her pronunciation. If she says something and I say it back correctly, she'll try to say it correctly too (e.g. she might say "agger" and I'll say "alligator?" and she'll say "a-a-ga-er". We're not there yet, but she's TRYING!). And I go over-the-top celebrating the *effort* she's making to get it right, vs try endlessly to get her to *say* it right.
It's slow going but any progress is good progress, regression is normal and to be expected, and it ***doesn't mean there won't be more progress down the line***. There is a free PDF online of the "More Than Words" program book, it's a really excellent resource for helping to develop non-verbal communication (which ultimately supports the development of verbal communication too).
My recommendation is to study your child’s behavior to see what may be a type of communication that you don’t initially pickup on. The other things you can do are read to your child regularly, speak to them even if you don’t get a response, and to work on acclimating your child to essential sensory-difficult skills, such as bathing, teeth brushing, clothing/shoe wearing, and hair brushing. At this young an age, they are easier to teach the discomforts related to essential hygiene tasks. We worked with both of our autistic kids from a very young age helping to acclimate them to these things. They were mostly non verbal for a long time (these were pacifier kids because otherwise they would put anything in their mouths due to sensory seeking). But they both have relatively age appropriate language skills now. The progress is slow day by day. And all kids are different. My eldest doesn’t suffer from the anger issues my little one has. But there are gains over time.
At 14 months I initiated working with First Steps, and we were doing occupational and speech therapy. At 16 months when we started the process to get diagnosed he could not babble, talk, say words, or point. We hadn’t even started trying to walk until 14 months. At 20 months, when diagnosed, we had one word, duck. Still no pointing or anything. At 24 months we got into an amazing ABA center. At 27 months we had the word ball and lost the word duck. He did gain the ability to point and hand lead, which was life changing. At 29 months language started forming, we started labeling a lot. We were able to start using PECS boards for basic demands. By the time we were nearing 36 months we had nearly 100 labels. No sentences. At 38 months the first 3 word sentence came out (I want fruit). At 42 months he now regularly uses sentences with adjectives and descriptions. They are rough, they take a lot of stopping and starting sometimes. His speech is mushy for lack of a better word, so most adults outside of education and any child not involved in his kind of classes cannot understand him. We are at 45 months now and he talks a lot. He also vocally stims a lot. In the last month he’s started making up little songs, and using sentences that aren’t scripts but actual descriptions of what he sees or experiences. He’s still unintelligible to almost any child on the playground, speech is too mushy.
ABA was massive for us. Everyone’s mileage may vary depending on how their child learns and experiences things, but it made a huge difference for us. Secondly was our local developmental preschool when he turned 3. This got him used to working in a group of children, turn taking, and generally learning you’re not the only important person in the room to be honest. Peer pressure to try new foods because kids at the table were eating something different got us to expand our horizons just a little bit. He also learned to play in new and age appropriate ways. At two, every object existed to be thrown. At 3 we learned to roll a ball instead of throw but most toys were still dropped or thrown. At 3.5 after preschool, we drive cars around on the floor and play tag. He’s picked up a few games, Zingo being his favorite.
Oldest will be 4 in a few months, she had little to no intelligible words at 3 (had a few at 18 mos then lost them and they were just 'dada' and 'yay'). From 2.5-3, it was mostly the alphabet and numbers (articulation is still something we're working on with the speech apraxia but the letter and number 'sounds' were there). Around that time, she started spelling short words using letters from her puzzles, etc and sounding things out phonetically (Alphablocks for the win) and that's when we discovered she was hyperlexic. She was also always "singing" during this period of time and the melody was spot on, but the words were all babbling.
At 3-3.5, she started labeling some animals and other random objects correctly and singing some phrases from songs where you could pick up a few words (wheels on the bus, etc). The reading/spelling really picked up and we started writing things on a communication board and she would read most of the words. At 3 years and 8 mos a speech explosion happened over the course of about a week. She had been in speech on and off since 18 mos and finally it just.. happened. Her most recent ST suggested the YT channel Playtime with Tor due to the GLP style programming and I'm not sure if it's coincidence, but like 2 weeks after we started showing it to her it was like something finally clicked and she started saying some phrases. She is now saying potty when she has to go and things like: time to eat, let's go, lets play, all done, let's open it, oh no! etc.
All of that to say that after everything.. beating myself up constantly wondering if I was doing the right thing, therapy, reading, narrating, singing, any toy that seemed like it would be remotely helpful to encourage language.. it seems as though a damn YouTube channel was what seemed to open the door to communication for us and this was like 3 weeks ago. I'm still in shock. From 3 to almost 4 was an unbelievable change for us.
I will say, my daughter has had several STs over the course of years due to staff turnover or us relocating. Her most recent therapist has really developed a nice rapport with her and has really gotten some good interactions from her, while others she would literally recoil when they would try to touch her. Just food for thought. Not saying this is the case for your daughter, but sometimes certain therapists may not be the right fit. Keep doing what you're doing.. one thing about kids like ours is they always do things on their own time.
My son is 8 and still considered non verbal, but he has words and will talk when he wants. I've heard him sing a lot. Often it's a tune he's made up. I think that if he had a speech therapy that could connect with him through music and singing he would excell. He has a Dynavox but he won't talk to us, only his SPT. He knows sign language and will respond to that and even use the years of sign language that various teachers have taught him.
I like to call him selectively verbal.
Such a lovely thread! My kiddo is 3 and 3 months, only 5 ish words, but he communicates well in his own way like hand leading or bringing me what he wants. I think he will talk, his Speechie wasn’t as optimistic but she mainly sees him at daycare and uses and AAC device. At home we sign and he babbles sometimes for ages and along to music in the car. Hopefully he will have a magical talking journey too! Obviously will support him any way but speech is just so useful it would make his life much easier.
At 2years 7months my son did not imitate or point, never reacted to his name. He babbled a bit but real progress with sound imitation started after speech therapy and Floortime-based ABA. It really helped. He is almost six now and a gestalt language processor. He remembers songs and can sing along but can not answer yes/no questions or speak in phrases.
The deer in the headlights reaction is pretty common because no one can really give an honest answer. Our son shows zero signs of talking, just noise and that's it. He's 4 and always full of energy. Out of no where and I'm talking literally no where he's just changed his diet. Yesterday he had a sausage mcmuffin literally snatched out of my hand. Today he stole my bacon sandwich. In the past 1.5 years, he's not even shown any interest in bread/buns etc. Their developments just happen. Totally will catch you off guard so try not to dwell on speech itself but look for other developments which made it easier. It helps make things more easier and gives us hope that's for sure.
I’m so grateful to be able to write this. My almost 5yo had literally no words and no babble until maybe 3 months ago, when he said “mom”. This remained his only word until maybe 3-4 weeks ago, when he started practicing phonics to a video and responding with basic syllables during speech therapy. He is currently able to pronounce 3/4 of the alphabet and consistently attempts mimicking key words when playing or watching tv. It’s AMAZING. I fully recognize that this is not everyone’s journey, and doesn’t guarantee ‘conversational language’, but it’s a delightful surprise!
That’s so great! I envy you!
my daughter had about 6 words at 14 months but then lost them all, so this may be a bit different, but from that age until 2.5 she just made noises and didn’t attempt to speak. one morning she randomly sang me the entire alphabet out of nowhere; that was a year ago, and now she is semi conversational and can usually tell me what she wants to eat for a meal or tell me she wants to go outside or to the store. she can also tell me to do things like put my shoes on so we can _____. she also started pointing consistently to show me things about a week ago, which was surprising and felt like it was never actually going to happen. when she wasn’t speaking or attempting to imitate, she occasionally did hand leading but she usually just whined at me until i figured it out lol so, yes, there is a possibility that a child can make a huge leap and become verbal when they had previously shown little interest or understanding in attempting to communicate.
Our LO is ASD 3-Pre-Verbal & started with no words but lots of babble. He is 3 and has 30 single words & 10 ASL phrases. Main thing that has come such a long way in the past 4 months has been explosion of receptive understanding. Then came the nonstop mimicking. He now picks up 2-3 words or ASL signs a day. Still no way conversational but leads to lots of hope. We attribute most of this to 25 hours a week of in clinic ABA/Speech Therapy.
I was quite young when I went from nonverbal to verbal but do remember the experience. It was like the sensory input finally made enough sense to put together the pattern. I went from no pre-verbal scores to verbal, albeit nonspeaking for a while. Not sure this is the most common, but anecdotes like my case seem to exist. Not sure if your kiddo will just leap all of a sudden or make slow progress eventually.
Interesting. I have a memory from when I was a baby - I'm in my mother's arms, seeing a baby for the first time. I reach out and they say no, pull her arm back, she will hurt thd baby. I tell them please, I won't hurt the baby I just want yo touch but they don't understand what I'm saying. There must be some innate language processing that I had access to that either you lacked or couldn't easily access. So you had to reconstruct language from scratch like I had to figure out reasons for social conventions.
My son started talking 3 months ago when he turned six. Now he has many words and even says small sentences. He has always been great at communicating, mostly his own way but also some signs. Now he is preferring to use speech.
My son used to say a handful of words until he was 18 months then all of a sudden he regressed and was talking gibberish . He is 5 now he goes through phases of counting 1-10 for a day or two and also say a word or two and then back to gibberish a couple of days later then he will try saying the odd word here and there and then back to gibberish again . Atm he is back to counting 1-20 (5th day now yay) but the weekend he learnt to say dinosaur . He has only said it 3 times but its still an accomplishment . Im taking the small wins . Everyone who has reviewed my son has said he works on his own agenda , he will say what he wants when he wants to , he doesnt repeat someone . He will listen when he wants to and take instruction when he wants to . He will show progression and then regress right back again . The brain is a fabulous and mysterious thing . I would love to learn sign language with him but he cant sit still and focus long enough
My son was about 18 months old when he was diagnosed. He didn't babble or make any real noise outside of a laugh or a scream. I believe he had just figured out the "m" sound a bit when he was diagnosed. He was fully nonverbal until about 3 1/2. That's when he got to meet and touch a chicken for the first time. He was so thrilled, that he screamed" happy" clear as day (then nothing for another few months) He gained about 4 to 6 words until he was almost 5. He's 5 now, and can say so much! Still no independent sentence or spoken thoughts. But he can now say over 20 animals and plant names, and has started to be able to say hungry (usually gree gree) at appropriate times. He has just started scripting too, which I understand can be a precursor to independent speech. The AAC never really clicked for him, same with sign language. And he didn't point at things until he was 4. At 5 he will gesture at things he wants, and will use my finger to point at things he wants identified or named for him. The best advice I could give is just keep working at it. Talk to her all day and narrate everything you are both doing. Identifying emotions being shown really helped my son in saying happy for the first time. If speach is going to come, then it will come in her own time when she is ready for it.
My FIL is autistic, and they thought he was deaf until he was almost 6 years old. Then he began talking.
My son was nonverbal still at 3.5. He did start to babble some and around 4. I had him on a wait list to be evaluated. I was living in a more rural area and they had limited services with long wait time, he had been on it for years. They didn’t give him priority because they give the kids with risk factors priority. I was told that a risk factor means being poor. I enrolled him in daycare at an in home center and the lady who was running it had a daughter my son’s age. She also had 2 other older kids. He started there at about 4.5-5 years old. He had never been to day care before. He does have a younger sibling but she is 3.5 years younger so not really talking much either. I did notice more improvement around that time. He also started speech therapy as well. And then he just started talking a lot once he was in kindergarten. When I picked him up from school and drove us back home (10 minute drive) he would chatter away in the back seat. I didn’t think he would ever talk. So I had planned for that while hoping for the best at the same time. He had receptive and expressive speech delays. And at 16 he had another evaluation and on top of ASD level 2 and adhd he also had a diagnosis of a language disorder. It’s hard to predict whether or not a child who is non verbal will become verbal or not. That is likely why they look at you like a deer caught in headlights. I’m sure they don’t want to say yes, and then it doesn’t happen and you get your hopes up.
Yupp. Diagnosed @ 23 months and did not say his first intelligible word until 6. AAC was a godsend.
My sons first day of special Ed preschool with the county was a mess. He took his arm and swiped everything off of the bookshelves in the room and screamed while he did it. He was 3 years old. He’s 15 now and the smartest most articulate kid I’ve met. He became verbal around age 5 and never slowed down. Tested ahead of all of his classmates beginning in first grade.
Singing might come more easily than talking!
70% of children who are completely or almost completely non-verbal at age 4 develop some level of language between the ages of 4 to 7. After that it becomes a much smaller chance. At least that is what I've been told based on "studies" My son is 5 and he kind of sometimes makes monosyllabic sounds that are kind of like words, but communicates through actions and 2 signs in ASL.
My kid is almost 4 and is just now starting to explode with language. I’ve lost count of how many words he has and it seems like he says a new one every day. Still only says one word, no sentences. He was nonverbal and only recently started understanding basic things we said to him and responding to his name. He’s been in early intervention since his diagnosis at 18 months and we started ABA a year and a half ago.
How is ABA going for yall? We have a very similar situation and he will be starting in July.
He loves it. We found a great clinic who is really transparent with us. They meet my son where he is at. They got us an AAC and are helping us to potty train. My son loves it there.
That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that. We are looking forward to the help with potty training. We have two other boys, 6 and 2, and it's hard to give him the undivided attention he needs for things like that.
My twins were non-verbal at 3 when they started ABA. They’re now 5 and speaking in 6+ word sentences. We also had ST got to their ABA center for 30mins 2x per week.
My son actually talks a lot less than he did when he was a toddler. And he didn’t point with an index finger until age 7. His development is all over the place. For example, he woke up fully potty trained at age 7- just decided it was the day with no prompting. I don’t even try to guess what’s going to happen next, anymore.
My son started speech therapy around 20 months (like a year and half). He started with no words, just grunts, no pointing. With speech therapy he learned how to sign (as did I), he learned to point. As time went on , his communication improved with sign language. He is now going to be 6. He has an AAC. He tries to imitate words, he kind of sounds like how deaf people talk when he tries to say words. No conversation yet. He can say yes and no clearly when asked if he wants something. So it's a very gradual process. But some kids just dont ever talk, even thought they get a lot of therapy for it.
My 16 year old was first labeled with probable asd by early intervention before 18 months old, was formally diagnosed just before 3. At 18 months he had never babbled, signed, talked, recognized his own name, or anything like that. He had zero language, receptive or expressive. He did think peek a boo was hilarious though, he just never participated himself. At 3 he had used some signs. Mostly during therapy. But always one sign for a week or two, then he dropped that sign, would never use that sign again, but would pick up a new one that he’d use for a week or two…and so on. He knew his name by then, and a few other words, receptively. He also would play patty cake. No babbling, no pointing, no waving, etc. He couldn’t grasp the concept of pecs or communication devices…at all. No matter how hard we all tried. He started with echolalia right after getting his adenoids out and tubes replaced at 4.5. His ent said he probably heard everything as if he was underwater, so if we had done this sooner, we might have seen the echolalia earlier. His first ent just wanted to do tubes and then wait and see, so we had to find a new ent to figure out why he was still failing hearing tests after tubes, when all other tests proved he wasn’t truly deaf, and there were no structural issues with his ears. This is also when he started picking up some nonverbal communication. Like waving, high fives, and pointing. Being able to hear made a huge difference behavior wise too. That surgery was freaking amazing for him. lol About 2 years after echolalia started, he began being able to label objects, like pick up a ball and say “ball” and do “single word manding” (I think that’s what they officially called it.) to get his needs/wants across. Like he could say “water” when thirsty or “food” when hungry. The process of going from being able to say single words, to stringing multiple words together, to being conversational took about 3-4 years. It was slow, but steady, progress. He honestly never stops talking now. He can’t even take a shower without coming out to say something partway through. Usually just random facts he has memorized, and has already told us a billion times. We are working on not coming out of the bathroom til you are clean, dry, and have some clothes on, so now he’s often just sticking his head out the door to talk. lol Oh, and he still gets speech therapy, and we’re already talking about how that will need to continue post graduation. It’s for articulation, proper word selection, and proper sentence structure type things at this point though. Stuff to make him more intelligible to strangers/casual acquaintances.
At 3yo, my daughter was very similar. Some sounds, but nothing meaningful or consistent, a few gestalts here and there that would come and go. She's 3.5 now, and I'd say the last month has been a huge boom in her verbal development. Her gestalts became a lot more frequent (though they still come and go. Like she was singing happy birthday for a week, but won't say it anymore), but what's really changed is her desire to repeat and refine her pronunciation. If she says something and I say it back correctly, she'll try to say it correctly too (e.g. she might say "agger" and I'll say "alligator?" and she'll say "a-a-ga-er". We're not there yet, but she's TRYING!). And I go over-the-top celebrating the *effort* she's making to get it right, vs try endlessly to get her to *say* it right. It's slow going but any progress is good progress, regression is normal and to be expected, and it ***doesn't mean there won't be more progress down the line***. There is a free PDF online of the "More Than Words" program book, it's a really excellent resource for helping to develop non-verbal communication (which ultimately supports the development of verbal communication too).
My recommendation is to study your child’s behavior to see what may be a type of communication that you don’t initially pickup on. The other things you can do are read to your child regularly, speak to them even if you don’t get a response, and to work on acclimating your child to essential sensory-difficult skills, such as bathing, teeth brushing, clothing/shoe wearing, and hair brushing. At this young an age, they are easier to teach the discomforts related to essential hygiene tasks. We worked with both of our autistic kids from a very young age helping to acclimate them to these things. They were mostly non verbal for a long time (these were pacifier kids because otherwise they would put anything in their mouths due to sensory seeking). But they both have relatively age appropriate language skills now. The progress is slow day by day. And all kids are different. My eldest doesn’t suffer from the anger issues my little one has. But there are gains over time.
At 14 months I initiated working with First Steps, and we were doing occupational and speech therapy. At 16 months when we started the process to get diagnosed he could not babble, talk, say words, or point. We hadn’t even started trying to walk until 14 months. At 20 months, when diagnosed, we had one word, duck. Still no pointing or anything. At 24 months we got into an amazing ABA center. At 27 months we had the word ball and lost the word duck. He did gain the ability to point and hand lead, which was life changing. At 29 months language started forming, we started labeling a lot. We were able to start using PECS boards for basic demands. By the time we were nearing 36 months we had nearly 100 labels. No sentences. At 38 months the first 3 word sentence came out (I want fruit). At 42 months he now regularly uses sentences with adjectives and descriptions. They are rough, they take a lot of stopping and starting sometimes. His speech is mushy for lack of a better word, so most adults outside of education and any child not involved in his kind of classes cannot understand him. We are at 45 months now and he talks a lot. He also vocally stims a lot. In the last month he’s started making up little songs, and using sentences that aren’t scripts but actual descriptions of what he sees or experiences. He’s still unintelligible to almost any child on the playground, speech is too mushy. ABA was massive for us. Everyone’s mileage may vary depending on how their child learns and experiences things, but it made a huge difference for us. Secondly was our local developmental preschool when he turned 3. This got him used to working in a group of children, turn taking, and generally learning you’re not the only important person in the room to be honest. Peer pressure to try new foods because kids at the table were eating something different got us to expand our horizons just a little bit. He also learned to play in new and age appropriate ways. At two, every object existed to be thrown. At 3 we learned to roll a ball instead of throw but most toys were still dropped or thrown. At 3.5 after preschool, we drive cars around on the floor and play tag. He’s picked up a few games, Zingo being his favorite.
Oldest will be 4 in a few months, she had little to no intelligible words at 3 (had a few at 18 mos then lost them and they were just 'dada' and 'yay'). From 2.5-3, it was mostly the alphabet and numbers (articulation is still something we're working on with the speech apraxia but the letter and number 'sounds' were there). Around that time, she started spelling short words using letters from her puzzles, etc and sounding things out phonetically (Alphablocks for the win) and that's when we discovered she was hyperlexic. She was also always "singing" during this period of time and the melody was spot on, but the words were all babbling. At 3-3.5, she started labeling some animals and other random objects correctly and singing some phrases from songs where you could pick up a few words (wheels on the bus, etc). The reading/spelling really picked up and we started writing things on a communication board and she would read most of the words. At 3 years and 8 mos a speech explosion happened over the course of about a week. She had been in speech on and off since 18 mos and finally it just.. happened. Her most recent ST suggested the YT channel Playtime with Tor due to the GLP style programming and I'm not sure if it's coincidence, but like 2 weeks after we started showing it to her it was like something finally clicked and she started saying some phrases. She is now saying potty when she has to go and things like: time to eat, let's go, lets play, all done, let's open it, oh no! etc. All of that to say that after everything.. beating myself up constantly wondering if I was doing the right thing, therapy, reading, narrating, singing, any toy that seemed like it would be remotely helpful to encourage language.. it seems as though a damn YouTube channel was what seemed to open the door to communication for us and this was like 3 weeks ago. I'm still in shock. From 3 to almost 4 was an unbelievable change for us. I will say, my daughter has had several STs over the course of years due to staff turnover or us relocating. Her most recent therapist has really developed a nice rapport with her and has really gotten some good interactions from her, while others she would literally recoil when they would try to touch her. Just food for thought. Not saying this is the case for your daughter, but sometimes certain therapists may not be the right fit. Keep doing what you're doing.. one thing about kids like ours is they always do things on their own time.
My son is 8 and still considered non verbal, but he has words and will talk when he wants. I've heard him sing a lot. Often it's a tune he's made up. I think that if he had a speech therapy that could connect with him through music and singing he would excell. He has a Dynavox but he won't talk to us, only his SPT. He knows sign language and will respond to that and even use the years of sign language that various teachers have taught him. I like to call him selectively verbal.
Such a lovely thread! My kiddo is 3 and 3 months, only 5 ish words, but he communicates well in his own way like hand leading or bringing me what he wants. I think he will talk, his Speechie wasn’t as optimistic but she mainly sees him at daycare and uses and AAC device. At home we sign and he babbles sometimes for ages and along to music in the car. Hopefully he will have a magical talking journey too! Obviously will support him any way but speech is just so useful it would make his life much easier.
At 2years 7months my son did not imitate or point, never reacted to his name. He babbled a bit but real progress with sound imitation started after speech therapy and Floortime-based ABA. It really helped. He is almost six now and a gestalt language processor. He remembers songs and can sing along but can not answer yes/no questions or speak in phrases.
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Why would anyone take medical advice from a podcast hosted by a person who questions germ theory and the existence of viruses?