A child with Autism Spectrum Disorder deserves the same chance as any other child to play a part in the social fabric of our world. However, having autism means your child’s very ability to communicate with the outside world can be limited. This is where speech therapy can help. Parents often come to me with concerns such as:

• My child cannot speak
• My child makes strange sounds and yells for no reason
• My child echoes everything I say
• I cannot communicate with my child
• I cannot understand what my child is saying

These concerns are of course troubling but addressing them is the first step toward providing your child a chance to be a part of our social world. We will tackle both verbal and nonverbal communication during therapy, since both forms are important in connecting with the environment and other people.

Therapy will be based upon the severity of the communication problem.If speech is difficult for your child than we will start off with other forms of communication to get the ball rolling, such as using pictures to communicate. We can also use electronic Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices that produce audio output based upon what your child inputs.

However, if speech is not the problem but rather the nuances of language than this requires a different approach. Therapy may include helping your child with the social use of language. As speech-language pathologists we are trained on the pragmatics and semantics of language.