Development of communication and communication in a child with autism. Teaching nonverbal children communication skills Limited interests and play patterns

12.03.2024 -

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 Introduction

 Chapter 1 Main stages of work

 Chapter 2 Training using smells

 Chapter 3 Development of articulatory praxis

 Chapter 4 Features of working on the structure of a simple sentence

 Chapter 5 Formation of grammatical structure of speech

 Chapter 6 Techniques for working on the expansion of phrases, on the natural sound of speech

 Chapter 7 Formation of monologue speech

 Chapter 8 Organization of classes for children aged 2.5-3 years

 Afterword

 Application

Introduction

In the course of their work, speech pathologists often encounter children who do not use active speech as a means of communication. Non-speaking (mute) children may have normal hearing or severe hearing loss, their speech organs may be severely organically damaged or have no visible pathologies, their intellectual level of development is sometimes very high, and sometimes significantly reduced. In each specific case, the cause of pathological speech development is determined by the doctor, relying both on his professional experience and on the results of an objective examination of the child. If the examination does not show organic disorders of the speech-motor and speech-auditory apparatus, and there are no visible prerequisites for gross underdevelopment of thought processes, but the child has pronounced features of the emotional-volitional sphere, he may be diagnosed early childhood autism(RDA).

Currently, early childhood autism is considered as a variant of severe dissociated dysontogenesis. Childhood autism manifests itself in different forms, at different levels of intellectual and speech development (Lalaeva R.I., Serebryakova, 2001). Non-speaking autistic children are distinguished by the most profound affective disorders, a sharp decrease in mental tone, severe impairments of voluntary activity, purposefulness, and they do not feel the need to communicate with the outside world. Modern instrumental capabilities (EEG, computed tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance, etc.) make it possible to identify existing morphological and biochemical changes that underlie brain dysfunction in autism (Gilberg K., Peters T., 1998). The connection between speech disorders and the pathology of certain brain structures is obvious. Thus, one of the reasons for the complete absence of speech in a child may be damage to the lower parietal parts of the brain (Burlakova M.K., 1997). With such localization of focal symptoms, the precise spatially organized activity of the articulatory apparatus is disrupted, caused not by a violation of the spatial factor itself, but by unformed reverse afferentation. In severe cases, the child is unable to pronounce not only words, but also individual speech sounds. When performing movements of the tongue, lips and other organs of the articulatory apparatus, he fails to find their desired position. Moreover, in these cases, the same organs freely perform any “involuntary” movements (children eat, swallow, lick soiled lips, etc. without difficulty, and can spontaneously vocalize individual sounds perceived as speech).

A neurologist or speech therapist can determine a violation of the voluntary activity of the articulatory apparatus in a child. However, parents themselves can suspect articulatory apraxia in autism in a 3-4 year old child based on some fairly pronounced signs. Outwardly, the child stands out for his immersion in oral autostimulation: he licks everything, stuffs his fists into his mouth and rather rudely tries to push his fingers as deep as possible into the oral cavity; Often the baby brutally bites loved ones, making no distinction between them and inanimate objects. He is also impaired in other types of voluntary movements, so it is extremely difficult to teach him any everyday skills. Early speech development in such a child usually has a number of features: if the first words appear after babbling, then they are in no way connected with the immediate environment (for example, “light bulb”, “turtle”), even the sounding word “mother” is not reaction to the mother approaching the baby.

Up to 2-2.5 years, a gradual enrichment of the child’s active vocabulary may occur due to words that are pronounced by others with strong passion (often these are swear words), or lines from poems and songs flash in the child’s speech. However, all these words or short phrases are not aimed at the child’s communication with loved ones, and during the transition to the active period of speech acquisition, he begins to lose this small vocabulary. As a result, by the age of three, the baby has only limited involuntary vocalizations (2-3 sounds), screams, and “mumbling” disappears, in which “fragments” of words could be distinguished. At the same time, significant disorders of the affective and motor spheres may be observed: fears and anxiety appear, the formation of complex motor operations with objects is disrupted, muscle tone decreases, facial expressions are impoverished, the child does not strive for contact, but does not reject it, goes into everyone’s arms without expressing no emotions at all.

Correction of speech disorders in children with a similar course of development should begin as early as possible, since a very long period of systematic work by a whole team of specialists (psychologist, speech therapist, music therapist, social teacher) is required. Even under conditions of complex, targeted work, it is very difficult to form developed communicative speech in a non-speaking child.

This book presents methodological developments that can be useful when working with those non-speaking children in whom it was not possible to evoke sound speech using methods of emotional disinhibition (Sobotovich E. F., 1981), the use of onomatopoeia (Rumyantseva O. A., Staroselskaya N. E., 1997) and in sessions of holding therapy (Liebling M. M., 2000) (the essence of this method is that one of the parents (usually the mother) holds the child tightly to him, affectionately with him talking about this. At first, the child resists, sometimes even shows aggression, but then he calms down and, feeling the special closeness of the adult, internally “opens up”).

Full text

Modern researchers pay great attention to the problem of communication development in children with autism spectrum disorders (Morozova, 1992; Nikolskaya, Baenskaya, Liebling, 1997; Peters, 2002; Koegel, 1995; Watson, Lord, Schaffer, Schopler, 1989). This is due, first of all, to the fact that communication disorders are a serious obstacle in the process of social adaptation of this category of children.

According to R. Jordan, in autism, all communicative forms of behavior are disrupted from the earliest stages of development (Jordan, 1993).

This problem manifests itself from the first months of life. Ricks' research showed that all children with autism either lack or very early lose the innate ability of a normally developing child to express universal emotions (emotions that can be understood by all people) (Ricks, 1979). According to Ricks, autistic children are characterized by a lack of universal communicative vocalizations observed during normal ontogenetic development in the first year of life.

Sparling (1991), Kubicek (1980) note that autistic children experience changes in expressive, receptive communication, and eye contact already in the first months. When communicating with parents, difficulties appear in the system of mutual exchange: insufficient synchronization of facial expression and body movements. Children with autism demonstrate a lack of positive feedback necessary to establish interaction between mother and child, and do not demonstrate a lack of differentiated reactions in response to minor changes in the mother's behavior.

Autistic children in the early stages of development have deficiencies in mutual, rhythmic-temporal, synchronized communication, which is characteristic of normally developing children. Communication disorders most clearly appear by the age of three.

More than a third of children with autism are mute or have not developed functional speech. They can make some basic attempts at communication: placing the adult's hands on the object they want to manipulate. However, gestural communication does not spontaneously develop as a replacement for verbal communication.

Some autistic children acquire speech. In this case, expressive speech develops with deviations from the norm and with a delay (Cunningham, 1968). The following features are noted: the presence of direct and delayed echolalia; difficulties in using personal pronouns (Bashina, 1999; Lebedinskaya, Nikolskaya, Baenskaya, 1989; Morozova, 1990; Kanner, 1943; Rutter, 1978), frequently repeated stereotypical statements that are used without apparent meaning, specific prosodic features (Lebedinskaya, Nikolskaya, 1991 ; Rutter, 1978). If speech is formed, then it is often not used spontaneously in dialogue, and also in accordance with its functional meaning.

The main disadvantage is semantic impairment, which is a lack of understanding of the meaning of words and, therefore, an inability to use them in accordance with a specific intention and situation (Jordan, 1993; Tager-Flusberg, 1981). These deficits arise due to cognitive impairments in children with autism, manifested in the inability to decode and encode information and use symbolic, sign systems to convey messages.

According to the authors, autistic children have problems understanding speech (Garfin and Lord, 1986; Jordan, 1993, 1995). This violation manifests itself in the form of a misunderstanding of the signal and symbolic meaning of speech units of communication, as well as a misunderstanding of the context in which speech utterances are used.

Violations of verbal communication manifest themselves as the inability to use speech to communicate (Morozova, 1992; Cunningham, 1968). The speech of autistic children is often non-communicative in nature, and initiation of communication is especially difficult. Many autistic children are characterized by an inability to adequately express various communicative intentions (requests, demands, comments, feelings, etc.) using verbal and nonverbal means of communication (Wetherby, Rodriques, 1992).

In some cases, autistic children communicate their intentions in unconventional ways (Watson, Lord, Schaffer, Schopler, 1989). For example, a request can be expressed in the form of maladaptive behavior: screaming, aggression. At the same time, speech can be used as autostimulation without performing a specific communicative function. Intention can be expressed in the form of echolalia, which in another situation also does not have a communicative orientation. Sometimes children who use an echolalic utterance with any communicative intent may not approach the person to whom the utterance is addressed, may not look at them, or otherwise get their attention. These features complicate the communication process, because It becomes difficult for people around to determine the purpose of the child’s statement.

One of the main disadvantages of verbal communication in children with autism is the inability to dialogue (Morozov, 2002; Nikolskaya, Baenskaya, Liebling, 1997; Prizant, Schuler, 1987; Rutter, 1978). According to Frith, autistic children have difficulty changing the communicative roles of “speaker” and “listener” due to problems in integrating meaningful information (Frith, 1989). During dialogue, children with autism are unable to provide feedback and thematic direction of information (Freeman, Dake, 1997; Quill, Bracken, Fair, Fiore, 2002).

In order to develop verbal communication skills in children with autism, three main approaches are being developed in special pedagogy and psychology: psychoanalytic, behavioristic and psycholinguistic (Watson, Lord, Schaffer, Schopler, 1989).

Supporters psychoanalytic approach viewed the speech of autistic children as a means of expressing conflicts that, according to psychoanalysts, were the cause of their autistic symptoms. For example, Jackson (1950) viewed autism in general, and social unresponsiveness in particular, as a defense mechanism in response to what is perceived as extreme danger. According to Ekstein (1964), autistic children who feel threatened by other people's attempts to establish interpersonal contact at the same time express a need for contact in the form of echolalia.

The author of the most famous psychoanalytic approach, Bettelheim (1967), paid special attention to the phenomenon of pronoun reversal in the speech of autistic children. He believed that this phenomenon reflected the absence of a personal “I” in these children and indicated a denial of their own existence. Thus, their specific speech was not considered a language disorder by Bettelheim. Moreover, Bettelheim believed that autistic children's speech was so well developed that they could use it to symbolically express their internal mental conflicts.

Thus, psychoanalytic approaches did not consider language as a goal of therapy. Analysis of the speech of autistic children was important in determining the nature of their internal conflicts. At the same time, the goal of therapy was to resolve these internal conflicts related to self-awareness. It was believed that as knowledge and ideas about oneself are formed, the child’s speech spontaneously changes and becomes more adequate.

Founders behaviorist approach Lovaas and his colleagues began to address the problem of developing communication skills in children with autism. They made the first attempts to develop speech in autistic children using operant training techniques (Lovaas, 1977; Lovaas, Berberich, Perloff, Schaeffer, 1966). Programs in this area began mainly with teaching a child to sit on a chair for a certain period of time, establish eye contact according to instructions, and imitate the movements of an adult. Then, the child was taught to imitate individual sounds, words and understand the meaning of words: the child had to choose the appropriate object or picture in response to the teacher’s verbal instructions. After this, the child was taught to name objects or pictures, or their features in response to a verbal stimulus (for example, “What is this?” or “Where is the block?”). A child who had mastered these skills was taught to answer questions in the form of simple phrases (for example, “This is a ball” or “The cube is in the box”). In behaviorist programs, stimulus conditions, learning contexts, prompts used were developed in detail, and great importance was given to reinforcing correct answers. The earliest of these programs taught children language skills in the context of structured therapy sessions. At the same time, the issue of applying the acquired communication skills in everyday life was not considered.

As a result, children were not capable of spontaneous transfer and did not use the acquired skills in natural conditions to transfer information. In this regard, program authors began to pay special attention to the “functionality” of speech skills and the possibility of their use in everyday life (Brown, Nietupski, Hamre-Nietupski, 1976). To overcome the difficulties of transfer (generalization), supporters of the behaviorist approach proposed using a variety of different situations when practicing each communication skill and including the maximum number of people in the learning process.

Gained great popularity abroad psycholinguistic approach . Proponents of this approach pay great attention to the study of the ontogenetic development of normal children, applying this knowledge when teaching children with autistic disorders. They compare the sequence of acquisition of communication skills in normal conditions and in autism, and consider the relationship and relationship between the levels of speech, cognitive and social development of an autistic child (Tager-Flusberg, 1985). The earliest research in this area focused on the syntactic structure of the language of autistic children. Then interest increased in the study of semantic aspects, i.e. the meaning of speech units of communication. Most recent research has focused on the pragmatic aspects of language. Questions were examined about the ability of autistic children to use language according to its meaning in various social contexts. Psycholinguistic approaches have had a major influence on the content of educational programs. The first programs for teaching children with autistic disorders based on a psycholinguistic approach were developed by MacDonald and Horstmeister (1978).

Thus, in special psychology and pedagogy, three main approaches to the problem of communication development in children with autistic disorders can be distinguished.

In order to study the characteristics of the development of communication in children with autistic disorders, we conducted a study in which 80 preschool children with childhood autism aged 5–7 years took part (Khaustov, 2005).

To obtain data on the communication skills of preschoolers with childhood autism, we used our adapted version of the “Assessment of Social and Communication Skills in Children with Autism” method (Quill, Bracken, Fair, Fiore, 2002).

The model for examining communication skills in children with autism included the following sections:

I. Identifying the characteristics of communication skills:

Types of communication used by the child in the communication process (verbal and non-verbal communication, alternative means of communication);

Communication possibilities (expressing requests, reluctance, commenting on one’s actions, reporting one’s feelings);

The child’s sphere of communication;

Specific communication disorders (mutism, presence of echolalic speech, talking to oneself, difficulty using personal pronouns, repeating phrases from books and films without connection with the situation, difficulty establishing adequate visual contact);

II. Assessment of the level of formation of basic communicative functions:

Requests/demands;

Social response;

Commenting and reporting information;

Information request;

III. Assessment of the level of development of socio-emotional skills:

Expressing emotions/communicating your feelings;

Prosocial behavior skills;

IV. Assessment of the level of development of dialogue skills:

Verbal dialogue skills;

Nonverbal dialogue skills.

The results of a survey aimed at studying communication skills in preschoolers with childhood autism confirmed and deepened the position of special psychology and correctional pedagogy that in childhood autism there are violations of communication skills, which manifest themselves in the form of immaturity of basic communication functions, socio-emotional and dialogue skills.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of experimental data was the basis for identifying 3 different-level groups of children requiring a differentiated approach when organizing pedagogical correction. When forming groups, the main criterion was the level of development of communication skills. The results of the ascertaining experiment are shown in Diagram 1.

Diagram 1.

Levels of development of communication skills in preschool children with childhood autism

Group 1 – low level– children who could not or found it difficult to attract the attention of other people in an adequate way, were not able to express requests/demands in a generally accepted way, demonstrated the lack of formation of an adequate social reaction: many did not respond to their name, did not respond to greetings, refused the adult’s proposals, demonstrating maladaptive behavior, and were not able to give an affirmative answer. This group showed immaturity in reporting and requesting information skills, prosocial behavior and dialogue skills. This group consisted of mutish children, as well as children using either vocalizations, or one-word statements, closely related to the immediate communication situation and practically non-communicative in nature (39 preschool children with childhood autism - 48.75%).

Group 2 – intermediate level– children actively expressed requests; in some cases, demonstrated an adequate response to the statements and actions of other people; were able to comment on surrounding events, name favorite characters, objects, familiar people, describe actions, location of various objects, using two- and three-word statements that are situational in nature and non-verbal means of communication; could answer simple questions from an adult, sometimes they were asked; at the same time, they were not able to describe the properties of objects, past and future events, or answer questions requiring an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships and time concepts; demonstrated immaturity of prosocial behavior and dialogue skills (34 children with childhood autism – 42.5%).

Group 3 – high level– children actively expressed various requests; demonstrated an adequate reaction in response to the statements, requests and actions of another person; were able to comment on their actions and the actions of other people, name various objects surrounding people, characters from cartoons, books, describe the location and properties of various objects, past and future events; they answered various questions from an adult and asked them, using expanded phrasal speech, not limited to the immediate communication situation, and nonverbal means of communication; demonstrated prosocial behavior skills and the ability to maintain a simple dialogue (7 preschool children with childhood autism – 8.75%).

The main difficulty for children 3 groups was that they demonstrated many communication skills only in familiar situations when interacting with a limited number of people. They did not use dialogic speech when interacting with other children.

The main feature of the children of all three groups was the inability to adequately express their own emotional states and communicate their emotions to the people around them.

Thus, the majority of preschool children with childhood autism syndrome have an average (42.5%) and low (48.75%) level of development of communication skills.

These results showed the need for targeted training of children with childhood autism syndrome using a specially developed differentiated system of psychological and pedagogical correction aimed at developing communication.

IN formative experiment 24 preschool children with childhood autism took part, making up the experimental group. The control group also included 24 preschool children with childhood autism, with whom no special correctional work was carried out on the development of speech communication.

The system of psychological and pedagogical correction for teaching communication skills included the following directions(Quill, Bracken, Fair, Fiore, 2002):

I. Formation basic communication functions :

Formation of the ability to express requests/demands using verbal and non-verbal means of communication;

Formation of a social response: reaction to a name, the ability to express a refusal, respond to a greeting, give an affirmative answer, agree, answer personal questions and comments of other people;

Formation of skills of commenting and reporting information: the ability to give a comment in response to an unexpected event, name surrounding objects, loved ones, characters from children's books, cartoons; the ability to use the possessive pronoun “my” to denote property, describe the actions, location, properties and qualities of objects, as well as more complex skills - describing past and future events;

Formation of the skill of requesting information: the ability to attract the attention of another person, ask questions in order to obtain information of interest.

II. Formation socio-emotional skills :

Formation of skills for adequate expression of emotions and communication of one’s feelings using verbal and non-verbal means of communication;

III. Formation dialogue skills :

Formation of verbal dialogue skills: the ability to initiate and complete a dialogue with a standard phrase; clarify the situation or be persistent by repeating the message; maintain a conversation (sharing information with the interlocutor; organized by the interlocutor; using feedback; on various topics);

Formation of non-verbal dialogue skills: the ability to speak while facing the interlocutor; maintain distance from the speaker; adjust voice volume depending on the environment; wait for the listener's confirmation before continuing the message.

In order to carry out psychological and pedagogical correction in the identified areas, various methods were used: various games, exercises that contributed to the formation of communication skills. The formation of communication skills was carried out in the course of joint activities: communicative-speech, subject-based, game, constructive, visual, educational.

Psychological and pedagogical correction for the formation of communication skills was carried out on the basis of the following principles, developed in general pedagogy, defectology and special psychology:

Complex impact;

Systematicity;

Learning from simple to complex;

Visibility;

The principle of a differentiated approach to learning;

Individual approach;

Connections of speech with other aspects of mental development.

Let's look at each principle in more detail.

The principle of complex impact involves participation, interaction and cooperation in the process of psychological and pedagogical correction of all specialists working with a given child and his parents. Compliance with this condition made it possible to significantly increase the efficiency of correctional work.

For example, a child could use a certain communication skill in class, when interacting with a specialist, but was not able to independently transfer it into everyday life. The inclusion of the maximum number of participants in the process of psychological and pedagogical correction made it possible to significantly overcome these difficulties, facilitate the transfer of communication skills into everyday life and consolidate them. At the same time, the impact on the child was coordinated and synchronized, which is achieved exclusively through close interaction and cooperation of the child’s parents, defectologist, psychologist, speech therapist, etc.

Systematic principle indicates the need for systematic training and constant practice in the development of communication. One of the main problems of autistic children is that they are unable to independently learn the communication skills necessary for everyday life. Targeted, systematic training helped to overcome this problem.

Corrective work was carried out in an orderly and consistent manner. The simplest skills were formed first, then more complex ones. For example, at the first stages, children were taught the ability to express requests, attract the attention of another person, at subsequent stages - the ability to ask questions in order to obtain information of interest; first - the ability to answer individual questions from an adult, then - the ability to maintain a dialogue.

The principle of learning from simple to complex is closely related to the principle of systematicity and presupposes the need to develop communication skills in a certain sequence, which involves the gradual complication of correctional tasks.

For example, while developing in children the ability to express a request, we gradually complicated the pattern of speech utterances: from a one-word request to a request expressed as a whole phrase, adhering to the following algorithm:

1. One-word verbal statement “Open”;

2. Statement in the form of a phrase/simple phrase “Open the door”;

3. Statement in the form of a simple phrase with the appeal “Mom, open the door”;

4. An extended phrasal statement, including an expression of politeness: “Mom, please open the door.”

When developing in children the ability to comment on images in pictures, we adhered to the following algorithm:

1. List of objects shown in the picture: “Girl, faucet, soap”;

2. Listing the objects shown in the picture, followed by naming the verb action: “Girl, faucet, soap. The girl washes her hands";

3. Naming the verb action with the addition “The girl washes her hands with soap.”

Thus, the development of speech communication was carried out sequentially, with gradual complication, which allowed children to gradually master more complex patterns of speech utterances, realizing their meaning.

The principle of visibility reveals the need for additional visual support, which provides significant assistance in teaching communication skills to autistic children. Research has shown that children with autism have difficulty learning symbolic and sign systems (Peters, 2002). In particular, there are deficiencies in understanding the meaning of speech units of communication. In this regard, it is difficult to use speech to express certain communicative functions. During the correctional work, this problem was overcome through the use of additional visual support: various objects, pictograms, pictures depicting various objects, phenomena and events.

Let's give an example: a child wanted an apple, but found it difficult to ask for it. In this case, we taught him to express a request by pointing to a pictogram with an image of an apple. In this way, those around him could understand the child, suggest the necessary words (for example, “Give me an apple”) and achieve what he wanted. Visual support was also used when working with children with a higher level of development. For example, when developing the ability to describe past events, we laid out photographs in front of the child depicting the events of the past day and asked: “What did you do today?” In this case, it was much easier for him to answer the question. Thus, the use of visual support was carried out at all stages of correctional work.

The principle of a differentiated approach indicates the need to select methods, techniques and forms of organizing pedagogical correction depending on the level of development of the communication skills of an autistic child. To comply with this principle, it was necessary to determine the level of development of the child’s communication skills using diagnostic and assessment techniques. For children of different levels, the content of correctional work varied.

IN first group(low level) psychological and pedagogical correction was aimed at developing the ability to express requests/demands, refusal, consent, respond to one’s name, answer greetings and simple questions, attract the attention of people around, and adequately express one’s own emotions.

In second group(intermediate level) the ability to name various objects, familiar people (by name), characters from books and films was developed; describe the actions and location of objects; determine the ownership of your own things; answer and ask simple questions: “What?”, “Who?”, “What is he doing?”, “Where?”; adequately express your own emotions.

The principle of the connection between speech and other aspects of mental development reveals the dependence of speech formation on the state of other mental processes. This principle indicates the need to identify and influence those factors that directly or indirectly impede the effective development of speech communication.

For example, during the learning process in the children of the experimental group, the development of communication skills was hampered by emotional disturbances, deficiencies in voluntary attention, auditory perception, and cognitive activity. In this case, correctional work included a parallel impact on all of these areas of mental development, which had a positive impact on the formation of speech communication.

The principle of individual approach assumes the need to take into account the individual characteristics, needs and interests of children with childhood autism in the process of psychological and pedagogical correction aimed at developing their communication.

For children who did not have reading skills, verbal or picture prompts were used, and for those who had developed reading skills, written prompts were used during the learning process.

In the process of conducting psychological and pedagogical correction, a number of conditions that have a significant impact on solving this problem.

Much attention was paid taking into account the personal interests and needs of the child . Due to the fact that the underdevelopment of speech communication in children with autism was largely associated with the absence or deficiency of their internal communicative motivation, there was a need for external stimulation of communicative activity. This was achieved by including in the process of psychological and pedagogical correction various subjects, various types of activities, as well as topics of conversation that were interesting for the child.

For example, when teaching a child the ability to express requests, we used his favorite foods and toys; The development of the ability to answer questions and comment on images in pictures was carried out with the help of the child’s favorite book. In this case, the children responded with greater desire, and the effectiveness of developing communication skills increased significantly. When teaching the ability to maintain a dialogue, conversation topics that were interesting to the child were also used. If the topic was imposed on the child, most often there was a withdrawal from interaction.

Of great importance in the process of correctional work was using hints . The implementation of this condition was carried out on the basis of a specific feature characteristic of all children with autism - echolalic speech(according to our study, echolalia was observed in all “speech” children with autism, regardless of the level of speech development). Echolalic speech in the process of correctional work was considered and used by us as the main means of developing verbal communication.

Often, in the process of correctional work with an autistic child, we are faced with a situation where he is determined to interact, but does not know how to attract the attention of his interlocutor, greet him, ask for help, play his favorite game, etc. In this case, we suggested to him words suitable for this situation: “Hello!”, “Help!”, “Let’s play!” etc. In a number of cases, children, on the contrary, were not in the mood for interaction and could not adequately express refusal, but began to scream or demonstrate other forms of maladaptive behavior, instead of saying “I don’t want”, “no”, “don’t”. In such situations, they also needed help in the form of verbal cues.

At the initial stages of correctional work, children repeated the adult’s words mechanically, by rote. With repeated repetition of similar situations and statements (and subject to the immediate fulfillment of children's requests and demands), they gradually developed an understanding of the meaning of the signal and symbolic meaning of the spoken words, and speech utterances became more and more conscious. As a result, the children began to use them independently, without prompting.

Another important condition was reinforcement of communicative statements . Research shows that reinforcement of any, even very weak, communication attempts leads to increased motivation (Koegel., O'Dell, Dunlap, 1988). This helps to increase the quantity, and, consequently, the quality of communicative utterances. In the process of correctional and developmental work, two types of reinforcement were used: artificial and natural.

As artificial reinforcement served M&M's, lollipops, raisins, chips, etc. in order to encourage the correct answer. Let's give an example: a teacher showed a child a picture of an object and asked “What is this?”; the child answered “this is a closet”; the adult says “correctly” by giving the child candy. This type of reinforcement was used quite rarely, mainly when performing structured exercises and learning tasks. This was due, first of all, to the fact that this type of reinforcement is not effective enough, since it is not directly related to the communication situation and is not included in practical activities.

Much more widely used natural reinforcement, directly related to the context of interaction and woven into the joint activities of the child and the adult. An example would be a game using lotto cards: we showed the child a card and asked “What is this?”; If the child answered correctly, then as a reward we gave him a card, which the child placed on the appropriate square. In this case, the card itself, included in the practical activity, acted as reinforcement. Our research has shown that the use of natural reinforcement best promotes the consolidation of communication skills.

The most important condition was using everyday, naturally occurring situations in the correctional work system. Previous studies have shown that the development of communication skills in children with autism is not effective enough if the learning process is based on strictly structured exercises and tasks and occurs exclusively within the framework of therapeutic sessions (Lovaas, Simmons, Koegel, Stevens-Long, 1973). In this case, the emerging skills turn out to be non-functional, isolated from daily emerging social situations and are not used by children in everyday life. To solve these problems we used the " accompanying training ”, which is based on the use of naturally occurring situations and episodes in order to develop communication skills (Carr, 1985). We built the process of correctional work on a combination of completing educational tasks and exercises using everyday situations. This allowed children to transfer their developing communication skills to various social contexts.

To implement this condition, teachers and parents who were with the child considered each situation as a potential opportunity for building communicative interaction. This required extreme attention to the child’s behavior and emotional reactions. If an adult noticed that the child was interested in something or was ready to interact, he looked for an opportunity to establish a communication process. Here are some examples:

1. The child wanted to get the ball that was lying on the closet, but could not reach it.

In this case, we showed interest in the situation by observing the child and smiling sincerely so that he would want to contact us. When the child paid attention to us, we extended our hands towards the ball, demonstrating our readiness to get it, and continued to look at the child. If he found it difficult to express a request, we gave a hint: “Give me the ball,” “Get the ball,” etc. When the child repeated after us, we immediately complied with his request.

2. The child watched the dogs playing with interest.

We showed interest in this situation: for example, we squatted near with the child, also watching the dogs play, and commented on the situation: “The dogs are playing.” In this case, the children most often repeated our statement. Then we looked at him with approval, and nodded slightly, reinforcing his response. If this did not happen, we continued to use a similar behavior strategy. Attention and respect for the children's interests led to the fact that they ultimately had a desire to repeat the statement. Over time, children learned to independently comment on surrounding situations, sharing their interests.

3. The child was looking for his shoes to go home.

We observed the child, paying attention to his problem. When he turned his head in our direction, we prompted him with the necessary words: for example, “Where are the shoes?” When the child repeated, we immediately took them out and showed the child where they were, reinforcing his communicative utterance. (The examples we described were used in working with children with different levels of communicative, social and cognitive development).

The use of everyday, naturally occurring situations was carried out taking into account the needs and interests of the child. What matters is what happened in such situations natural reinforcement communicative statements of the child; in this case, the reward was the result of the child’s verbal utterance - the fulfillment of his desire, intention, directly related to this situation. This allowed the child to understand that the spoken phrase leads to a certain result; that with the help of speech it is possible to influence the behavior of other people, which contributes to solving the current situation.

All correctional and developmental work was based on the following algorithm:

1. Selecting a learning goal: determining the communication skill that needs to be developed;

2. Modeling a situation that provokes a child’s communicative statement;

3. Giving the child time to formulate an independent statement;

4. Providing hints in case of difficulty;

5. Reinforcement of the child’s communication attempt;

6. Consolidation and generalization of the skill in everyday life with the participation of several people (specialists, parents of the child, his friends, etc.);

To develop each communication skill, a series of similar exercises, games and simulated situations were specially developed to promote the development of speech communication in children with autistic disorders. Here are some examples:

Request to repeat the action:

· Goal: developing the ability to ask for repetition of an action;

· Situation modeling:

We played with the child with his favorite toy – a spinning top. Each time, before starting the spinning top, they said “more” or “start it again.” When the child got used to the progress of the game, we put our hand on the handle of the spinning top, but did not start it.

· We looked at the child and waited for him to ask to repeat the action, giving him time to formulate an independent statement;

· If a child finds it difficult to independently express a request to repeat a game action, we gave him the hint “more”, “start another”, “start a spinning top”, etc.;

· When the child said “more,” his request was immediately fulfilled, encouraging the utterance.

· We repeated this game several times, reducing the number of hints. To consolidate this skill, a large number of similar situations were used.

Ability to name various cartoon characters

· Target: developing the ability to name various cartoon characters;

· Situation modeling:

We played the child's favorite cartoon about Winnie the Pooh, recorded on DVD. Every time another character appeared on the screen, we pressed the “pause” button and called him (for example, “rabbit”, “Eeyore”).

· When the child understood the principle of our actions, we once again pressed “pause” and looked at the child, waiting for an answer, or asking the question “Who is this?”

· If he does not answer the question on his own, he is given a hint.

· As soon as the child responded, we continued watching the cartoon as a reward.

· Consolidation of this skill was carried out by several family members and acquaintances, at home and away.

All exercises, simulated game and everyday situations were built on the basis personal dispositions children: physiological, material, social motives, needs, taking into account their interests and desires. In children it increased significantly situational motivation, there was a need to use various communication skills: ask/demand a favorite toy, attract the attention of another person, express consent, refusal, say hello, comment on a game action, report your emotions.

The formation of communication skills took place in individual form. Consolidation of a specific communication skill in a small group was carried out only when the child could independently use it when interacting with adults. Transfer from individual To subgroup work was carried out according to the following scheme:

1. formation of communication skills in a pair: child – defectologist;

2. strengthening communication skills in pairs with other specialists working with the child (speech therapist, psychologist) and parents;

3. consolidation of communication skills in a small group with the participation of a speech pathologist teacher.

Analysis of the results of the formative experiment made it possible to determine the effectiveness of our proposed system of psychological and pedagogical correction: to trace the dynamics of the development of communication skills and play skills in autistic preschool children. For this purpose, a control experiment was organized, in which children from the experimental (24 people) and control (24 people) groups participated. The examination was carried out according to the methods of the ascertaining experiment. This made it possible to identify the general and comparative dynamics of growth in indicators in the experimental and control groups. A comparative analysis of the study materials (statement and control) showed changes in quantitative and qualitative indicators reflecting the state of communication skills in children of the experimental group before and after training.

The control study revealed positive dynamics in the development of verbal communication: the growth of communicative vocabulary, the development of the intentional orientation of speech, the ability to use it in various social situations, when interacting with other people. The sphere of communication of children included in the experimental group greatly expanded: the need to communicate with familiar adults was expressed by all children in this category - 100% (24 people); 45.8% of autistic children (11 people) communicated with unfamiliar adults; with familiar children – 83.3% (20 people); with unfamiliar children – 12.5% (3 people). At the same time, before training these figures were 95%, 26.25%, 28% and 5%, respectively.

During the learning process, children in the experimental group developed the ability to express basic communicative functions using verbal and nonverbal means of communication (see Diagrams 2 and 3).

Diagram 2.

Diagram 3.

After training, 83.3% of children (20 people) in the experimental group could freely express various requests during communication. Only 16.7% (4 people) experienced difficulty in expressing their desires. A significant part of the experimental group (66.7% - 16 children) demonstrated a developed social response; another 25% (6 people) did not always react adequately to the statements and actions of people around them; 8.3% of autistic children (2 people) showed an unformed response. 75% of children (18 people) were able to easily communicate information and comment on their actions and surrounding events; 8.3% (2 children) experienced some difficulties when required to comment; 16.7% (4 people) were practically unable to comment on the current situation and answer the teacher’s questions. 25% of children (6 people) could ask a variety of questions in order to obtain information without much difficulty; 33.3% of children (8 people) demonstrated partially developed skills for requesting information; the remaining group – 41.7% (10 people) – consisted of children who were practically unable to ask questions aimed at obtaining new information.

The control experiment revealed positive dynamics in the development of socio-emotional skills in children with childhood autism (see diagrams 4 and 5).

Diagram 4. Diagram 5.

8.3% of children (2 people) in the experimental group showed high results in the ability to report their emotions. Children in this group were capable of understanding their emotional states and adequately expressed their feelings using verbal and nonverbal means of communication. 25% of children (6 people) could only report individual emotions; they were characterized by a lack of awareness of their emotional states. 66.7% of children (16 people) showed low results, lack of awareness and inability to communicate their emotions verbally. In such cases, feelings were often expressed in the form of maladaptive behaviors. Significant advances have been made in promoting prosocial behavior. Part of the group - 20.8% (5 people) showed a high level of development of prosocial behavior, 37.5% (9 people) - average, 41.7% (10 people) of children demonstrated undeveloped prosocial skills.

Significant dynamics were noted in the development of dialogue skills. 12.5% of children (3 people) in the experimental group reached a high level in the development of verbal dialogue skills. They learned to initiate a conversation by calling the other person by name, start and end a dialogue using a standard phrase, and maintain it by sharing information and answering the other person’s questions. In most situations, children in this group were able to maintain a conversation on various topics. For many children in this category, communicative statements began to be more extensive in nature compared to other children, taking the form of phrasal speech. 16.7% of children (4 people) reached the average level of development of dialogic speech. They fully mastered only some dialogue skills, and generally could not ensure the thematic focus of the dialogue or support the conversation with the help of feedback. The remaining group consisted of children whose verbal dialogue skills remained undeveloped - 70.8% (17 people).

Noticeable dynamics were noted in the formation of non-verbal dialogue skills. In 16.7% of children (4 people), after training, the ability to maintain a dialogue, turning to face the interlocutor, maintain a distance from him, adjust the volume of the voice depending on the situation, and wait for confirmation from the listener before continuing the message was formed to a large extent , use gestures and facial expressions during the conversation. In another 16.7% of children, these skills were partially formed. Approximately 67% of the experimental group (16 people) demonstrated a low level of development of nonverbal dialogue skills. The dynamics of the formation of dialogue skills in children with autism are reflected in diagrams 6 and 7.

Diagram 6. Diagram 7.

The results of a comparative study of the levels of development of communication skills in preschool children with childhood autism in the experimental and control groups are presented in Diagrams 8 and 9.

Diagram 8.

Dynamics of development of communication skills in children of the experimental group (%)

Diagram 9.

Dynamics of development of communication skills in children of the control group (%)

1 group consisted of 3 children of the experimental group (12.5%) and 7 children of the control group (29.2%), remaining for low level, and characterized by the ability to attract the attention of only close people in individual, well-known situations, the ability to express a small number of requests in a familiar environment, using one-word statements that are closely related to the immediate communication situation; lack of formation of social response, skills of commenting, reporting and requesting information, prosocial behavior, inability to adequately express one’s emotions, inability to dialogue.

2nd group consisted of 14 children of the experimental group (58.3%) and 13 children of the control group (54.1%), who reached mid-level, and characterized by the ability to express requests, social response, comment on surrounding events, using two- or three-word statements that are situational in nature; the ability to answer simple questions from an adult and ask them; at the same time, unable to describe the properties of objects, past and future events, answer questions that require an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships and temporal concepts; lack of development of prosocial and dialogue skills.

3 group consisted of 7 children of the experimental group (29.2%) and 4 children of the control group (16.7%), who reached high level, and characterized by the ability to express various communicative functions using expanded phrasal speech, not limited to the immediate communication situation: requests, feedback, commenting, reporting and requesting information, reporting your emotions; formation of prosocial behavior, the ability to initiate, complete and maintain dialogue on various topics, using verbal and non-verbal means of communication.

It is worth noting that in children 3 groups(high level) after the formative experiment, the possibilities of using the developed communication skills in everyday life have significantly expanded. At the same time, they still had Difficulty using conversational skills when interacting with other children.

A comparative analysis of materials from the experimental and control groups showed that the data from their initial examination did not differ significantly. The results of the control study suggest that many children in the control group retain a low level of development of communication skills by the end of training (29.2%). They still have significant difficulties when it comes to attracting attention, expressing a demand, a request, or adequately responding to the statements and actions of people around them, using verbal and nonverbal means of communication. There is an immaturity in the skills of commenting, reporting and requesting information, socio-emotional and dialogue skills. In general, children who were trained according to the proposed program showed significantly better results than children in the control group. The overall increase in indicators of the development of communication skills in children in the control group was 19.55%, in children in the experimental group – 36.25%. Thus, the effectiveness of developing communication skills in the experimental group is 16.7% higher than in the control group.

The research materials obtained by comparing data from the experimental and control groups allowed us to draw a conclusion about the dynamics of the development of children participating in the educational experiment and the effectiveness of the proposed differentiated system of pedagogical correction aimed at developing communication in children with autistic disorders.

Khaustov A.V. Development of speech communication in children with autistic disorders // Childhood autism: research and practice. pp. 208-235. Copy

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Currently, various methods of treating autism have been developed that contribute to the understanding of autistic children and enable them to grow, develop and live normally in this world.

Interaction and development therapy

When treating autism in children, interaction and development therapy, which is aimed at stimulating the child’s development, is very effective. This therapy was developed about 30 years ago and has improved with each new discovery. The idea is to get closer to the child, taking into account his perception of the world.

An autistic child is naturally curious, although it is not like the curiosity of a normal child. He is more interested in objects. Only a little piques his curiosity. You need to notice in time what will interest him. Sessions of joint play will gradually help the child reach a new, more complex level of communication.

At the moment of interaction between a child and an adult, brain activity is synchronized. If we could see the brain of an autistic child, we would notice the activation of neural networks, accompanied by the formation of new connections between neurons, forming new neural networks. This therapy has a direct effect on the architecture of the brain.

Neurons are brain cells that allow information to be transmitted. As the brain develops, neurons grow larger. Neurons connect with each other to form synapses. Synapses form and disintegrate. This provides so-called brain plasticity.

If neurons for some reason cannot connect normally, then the transmission of information in brain cells is disrupted. This is typical for autism. This happens, for example, when a person is unable to hear the human voice, but can hear other sounds. There is one contact between neurons, but not the other. But with rehabilitation therapy, thanks to the plasticity of the brain, we can hope to restore these lost contacts. Not completely, but at least partially. The same thing happens with orthophonic rehabilitation and psychomotor rehabilitation. One way or another, any psychotherapy promotes the restoration and formation of neural networks.

Autism is also characterized by the child being unable to distinguish a person's voice from other noises. Therapy allows you to better recognize human voices, so the child begins to speak better.

To evaluate the technique, scientists compared the social behavior, language and motor skills of 15 children before therapy, after 1 year and after 2 years of classes. Each of the children made progress. Signs of autism have become less noticeable.

Childhood autism is also characterized by the fact that 80% of autistic people do not look into the eyes of the person they are communicating with. Therefore, it is difficult for them to understand the facial expression, feelings and intentions of the other person. They look at the contours of the face, not the face. This is unusual because most often children look at the eyes because it is the most informative part of the face, the eyes reflect feelings and social information. This information makes interaction possible. Autistic children look more closely at objects than at a human face. Over the course of two years, with the help of play activities, autistic children learn to look people in the eyes. And their brain begins to work almost normally.

Stimulating interaction with people allows you to restore information transmission networks. This promotes communication and the creation of neural connections.

The earlier the diagnosis is made, the greater the chances of success. After all, at this time the brain changes a lot. Over the course of a year, motor skills and speech change – and this applies to any child. At this time, the brain has great plasticity. Intensive training during a period when the brain is changing so much gives the best results. Some symptoms may disappear or become unnoticeable and do not interfere with life.

If you start classes early, the child will learn to communicate with other children and will develop normally. Parents need to adapt to their children in order to help them.

The Denver Model treatment method for autism

To develop well, autistic children must study much more than other children to learn how to behave in all situations. They must change their behavior too. You can do everything with your child together, together. The child needs to be praised when he is able to express his thoughts or do something.

Autistic children perceive their surroundings in a special way. They can play in the sand or play with pebbles for hours. In the Denver model, the child's interest is used to distract him from repetitive movements and interest him in something else.

A scientific experiment involving 48 children showed that children who received the Denver model made greater progress than children who received only behavioral therapy. By the age of seven, they had all reached a normal level of mental development and social adaptation.

“Imitation” method of treating autism

For a long time, scientists underestimated the developmental potential of autism. For example, they were thought to be unable to imitate someone in order to communicate and learn. However, recently it has been proven that imitation is the basis of communication, including for autistic people.

Simple imitation allows you to understand how important the other person is. It is important for seeing yourself and understanding your own intentions and actions. This allows you to awaken interest in yourself, including in an autistic person who understands that you need to do what someone else does in order to represent yourself.

What happens in the brains of two people imitating each other? Scientists have proven that when people do something at the same time, their brains also synchronize. The same “brain waves” are activated in both participants. As an exercise, you can sit two children opposite each other and ask them to make any movements with their hands and imitate each other, and it does not matter how long they imitate and how long they make independent movements. If the experiment is carried out with ordinary children, then, as a rule, the children change roles 50/50.

When autistic children participate in an experiment, they either imitate another all the time, or they always offer their own movements without imitating the other, but more often they imitate. This contradicts the common belief that autistic people cannot imitate others. It is difficult to get an autistic person to understand when another participant is ready to switch roles, and to give up his role to him, taking over his role.

Can imitation be used to connect with autistic children and help them interact with others?

An experiment was conducted with the participation of 8 autistic children. They were placed in a equipped room in which all things were in duplicate. Thanks to this, the autistic child and the teacher could simultaneously make the same movements with objects. From 2 to 4 years of age, when children do not yet speak, they spontaneously use imitation to communicate. Can autistic children do the same?

When using language or when communicating non-verbally, some kind of connection must be established. Imitation, in which two people do the same thing at the same time, allows for this connection to be created by creating a shared experience. The hypothesis was that imitation would diversify their repertoire of behavior and develop new interests.

The research was to find out how they benefit from imitating movements and having their movements imitated to improve their ability to communicate with people. Will they learn to approach people, not be afraid of them, not avoid them?

During the experiment, in some cases the children did not imitate their teachers for the first time. Then the teachers began to imitate them. The children noticed this and began to become interested. After that, they began to little by little imitate the adult.

Imitation is akin to adventure. This is an opportunity that we give to a person who is not inclined to travel and all sorts of new experiments. We give him the opportunity to travel. This not only facilitates communication, but also stimulates curiosity, the desire to know what is happening and what is around.

Over the course of a two-year imitation experiment, autistic children's social abilities and imagination improved significantly. They themselves began to choose what to imitate. And they themselves decide when to change from being imitated to becoming an imitator. They carefully watch what the teacher does and rejoice. They began to understand that they had to alternate between imitation and their own movements. This was the purpose of the experiment.

After just a month of training you can feel the difference. The child imitates more often and develops faster. Begins to be interested in something and stops focusing on the same movements and actions. He begins to engage in interactions with others and feels more confident.

Every autistic child is unique. Early diagnosis and new techniques aimed at child development allow us to hope for the best. By training doctors, parents, and teachers to recognize this disorder, we can empower them to understand these unusual children to help them connect with others.

It is necessary to allow children with autism to become full-fledged members of society - to study at school, work, communicate, create, love.

I know you can't hear me, but I'm talking to you.
And I hear everything you tell me.

I hear you laugh when I do something funny.
I hear you shout hurray

When I try so hard.
I hear you tell others that you wouldn't trade me for the world,
even despite all the trials that came with me... And I know that you know: I understand everything.
And you know that I listen when you talk to me.
But I want you to know, mom...
I'm talking with you. ("I am speaking with you"
By Jessica Soukup, (translation))

On the features of nonverbal communication in children with autism.

Every year more and more children with autism spectrum disorder come to school. Having quite a lot of experience in speech therapy work with various speech disorders in children, we begin to work with children with a history of ASD. Starting this year, our school has two autonomous resource classes. A fairly large number of methodological and digital resources were processed in a relatively short period of time. There is a certain immersion, understanding and awareness of the problems caused by the condition of the autistic child. Of course, there is a desire to help. We are trying to generalize and structure some blocks of knowledge. So, let's try to separate the concepts of communication and communication. Communication is the interaction of two or more persons, which is based on the mutual exchange of information of a cognitive and affective-evaluative nature. Communication, during which information is exchanged between systems in living and inanimate nature and society, is communication. Communication is a broader concept than communication, and therefore these concepts are differentiated. Communication can be carried out using speech and non-speech methods. Non-speech methods of communication include: optical-kinetic methods (gestures, facial expressions, pantomime), paralinguistic methods (voice quality and range, tonality), extralinguistic methods (pauses, crying, laughter, speech rate), spatio-temporal methods (location of partners, temporary delays in the start of communication, etc.)

Nonverbal communication is based on a polysensory nature, that is, perception through hearing, vision, smell, tactile sensitivity, etc. different types of non-verbal information (emotional, aesthetic, biophysical, social group, spatial, psychological). During communication, this information is transmitted within the nonverbal channel from the speaker to the listener, regardless of the content of the verbal message.

It is known that nonverbal communication is an integral part of interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Thus, an autistic child may have impaired formation of all forms of nonverbal and verbal communication. First of all, he does not form eye contact, the child does not look into the eyes of an adult, does not reach out with a request to take him in his arms, as a baby with normal psychophysical development does already in the early stages of socio-emotional development. In some cases, children may stretch out their hands in the appropriate direction, but without attempting to name the desired object, without looking at an adult, without verbal or auditory manifestation of their desire. When interacting with an adult, a child with autism shows insufficient use of facial expressions, gestures, and intonation in the voice. The child’s facial expressions are inexpressive; a typical look is along or through the interlocutor. Such children may inadequately use gaze, gestures, and facial expressions; it is difficult for them to regulate the optimal distance; they are unable to develop relationships with peers, understand the experiences, emotions, thoughts of other people, and acquire and consolidate social experience.

Features of nonverbal communication of a child with autism are manifested in the inability to navigate and independently initiate a call, to express interest in an adult as a new person, in the difficulty of maintaining contact, in the absence of attempts to interact, in the focus of behavioral activity primarily on manipulating objects rather than with the interlocutor, in difficulties in using adequate methods of communication, including predominantly untargeted stereotypical body movements, together with inexpressive facial expressions, touches, vocalizations or individual words.

The leading role in the process of nonverbal communication with an autistic child belongs to an adult. He establishes and establishes interaction, starting from the communicative nonverbal indicators that he was able to recognize in the behavior of each individual child.

Any nonverbal actions of an autistic child have communicative potential and carry communicative information. That is, the manifestations of the behavior of an autistic child can be considered as ways of his communication, attempts to communicate something to others. At the same time, the cognitive component is not important for nonverbal communication, as in speech communication, the presence of conscious designation of gestures.

The fullness of the communication process, the qualitative characteristics of movement and methods of non-verbal self-expression through communication become important.

Children with autism have high sensory sensitivity, are overwhelmed by sensory sensations and often cannot separate themselves from them. The specifics of their communicative activity may be influenced by the polysensory nature of nonverbal information and the inability to integrate it and regulate the flow of sensory information. In such cases, the use of non-verbal methods of communication (gesture, drawing, pictogram, pex picture) for the purpose of reinforcement allows a child with autism to better perceive and understand verbal messages. Consequently, nonverbal communication does not require the child to have developed articulatory, phonemic skills and abilities and is of a polysensory nature.

About the features of verbal communication in children with autism

Speech disorders occupy a significant place among the characteristic signs of early childhood autism, as a reflection of the immaturity of communicative behavior. A number of studies emphasize the connection of speech disorders with a deficit of mental activity and dissociation between the acoustic and semantic aspects of speech. The formation of speech in children with autistic disorders has a number of features. Often such children do not have the stages of humming and babbling, and if humming is present, it is mechanical, devoid of an intonation component. Often, a child’s speech appears long before he begins to walk. The first words do not have targeted content and do not serve as a way of communication; they are pronounced spontaneously, without taking into account the situation and create the impression of playing with words. Sometimes pronouncing individual words takes on a ritual character and makes it easier to perform a particular action.

Neologisms are often used in speech. There is a violation of the semantic aspect of words. Speech is often chanted, imperative, and the intonation component does not reflect the emotional state of the child and the environment in which he is located. Almost all children with autistic disorders have incorrect use of pronouns, especially “I”, most children talk about themselves in the third person, or call themselves by name, some do not show the desire to talk about themselves and express their needs.

Often, after the appearance of the first words, a child develops mutism and persists for quite a long time. A child with such a speech disorder cannot respond to spoken speech, including his own name, or pay attention to speech more than to any noise.

Such children may outwardly seem completely indifferent to the speech of adults, and the speech of adults cannot always regulate their behavior. However, along with this, children often spontaneously, without taking into account the situation, immediately or after some time reproduce what they heard, even with the preservation of the intonation component (immediate or delayed echolalia).

Echolalia can be considered as one of the qualities of the method of holistic structure of speech development, when the child uses parts of verbal fragments as a whole. Echolalia can be non-communicative, i.e. used to obtain auditory and tactile satisfaction, and communicative, i.e. performs several functions:

Indication of lack of understanding of the surrounding situation;

A way of comprehending and processing information that helps translate spoken words into inner speech;

The request is in the only accessible form.

Echolalia can also be used as a social strategy. Echolalia becomes a form of communication, a route towards more correct forms of self-expression. With this approach to the problem, echolalia becomes not an element of speech that should be turned off, as previously thought, but a form of speech that has a connecting function.

A speech child may have many stereotypes, verbal cliches of adult words. These children may have a large vocabulary, they often pronounce long monologues, but have great difficulty in normal conversation. Individual words that the child has already used in speech may disappear for a long time and then appear again.

Children with autistic disorders are sometimes capable of repeating actions or phrases many times, but with selectivity specific to them, i.e. a child can stereotypically and tirelessly perform the same series of movements without transferring the experience gained to another situation, repeat the same words and phrases, giving them a certain meaning or simply playing with them.

Children with autism tend to use requests in an unusual form, reproduce factual visual material, certain hysterical or auto-aggressive manifestations aimed at a strong emotional response from others, and also, possibly, an attempt to establish contact through echolalia. A child often cannot address another person in a directed manner, simply call his mother, ask her for something, express his needs, but is able to involuntarily repeat words and phrases that are not assigned to the situation.

Children with autism are characterized by excessive literalness in understanding words, pronouns, confirmation through repetition, demands for the same verbal repetition, metaphorical speech (consists in the figurative use of a word or expression based on analogy, similarity or comparison), which reflect violations in social, cognitive and communication areas.

Using only a tiny set of speech patterns for activities, a child with autism can simultaneously show acute sensitivity to the speech forms of words as such. For such children, there is usually a passion for rhymes, verses, and reading them by heart. An ear for music and sensitivity to rhythmic speech, attention to high poetry surprises everyone who surrounds such children in life.

O. Nikolskaya identified three groups of children according to the severity and nature of secondary speech development disorders. In studies by scientists on the development of speech in children with autism, A.V. Arshatsky, O.S. Arshatskaya, E.R. Baenskoy, V.M. Bashina, S.S. Morozova, O.S. Nikolskoy, L.G. Nurieva, L.M. Shipitsyna and others noted a violation of the communicative function of speech, which manifests itself both in the inability to fully perceive verbal information (weakness or complete lack of reaction to the speech of an adult simultaneously with increased sensitivity to non-speech sounds, lack of understanding of simple everyday instructions and addressed speech), and in the inability to adequately form verbal expression and interaction with surrounding people according to the situation.

In general, communication disorders in autism are quite diverse. Since childhood, children with autism have experienced a significant delay in the formation of nonverbal methods of communication, as well as speech development, which is manifested by systemic underdevelopment of all its aspects. Subsequently, the formation of speech occurs specifically and has a number of features, variability and unevenness of speech development, insufficient understanding of addressed speech, the use of echolalia, the presence of neologisms, rearrangement of pronouns, the use of unusual intonation, lack of addresses to the interlocutor for the purpose of communication.

The identified features of the development of nonverbal and verbal communication certainly complicate the child’s interaction with others. However, under the condition of long-term and qualified correctional and developmental work, one can notice significant changes in the social, communicative, and speech spheres.

Prepared by speech therapist Yu.E. Novak

Literature:

1.Bashina V.M. Autism in childhood - M.: “Medicine”, 1999

2. Ivanov E.S., Demyanchuk L.N., Demyanchuk R.V. Childhood autism: diagnosis and correction. Textbook. St. Petersburg Didactics plus, 2004.

3. Morozov V.P. Nonverbal communication in the speech communication system. Psychophysiological and psychoacoustic foundations. – M.: Ed. IP RAS, 1998.

4. Nikolskaya O.S., Baenskaya E.R., Liebling M.M., Kostin I.A. and others. Children and adolescents with autism. Psychological support.-M.: Terevinf. 2005.

5. Shipitsyna L.M., Zashirinskaya O.V. Nonverbal communication in children with normal and impaired intelligence. Monograph. – St. Petersburg; Speech, 2009.

All people can communicate, but not everyone can speak. Some people speak little and do not use speech to communicate. Some people can only utter certain phrases and words, which, in fact, mean something completely different from what they wanted to say.

Sometimes I use spoken language, but I'm still very non-verbal. I can't always find the right words or say them out loud. I often speak very slurredly, and I pronounce words differently than most people pronounce them. I find it much easier to communicate using a letter board or Proloquo2Go.

Very often I say ridiculous things like “Larry boy” or “go back to the green house.” I repeat these phrases over and over again for no reason. I hear myself say this and think about how ridiculous this all sounds; I want to shut up, but I don’t know how to stop.

When people ask me something, there is an insurmountable barrier between my mind and my mouth, and I cannot say what I want. You can imagine how much this irritates me!

It's especially frustrating when people assume that my intelligence is much lower than it really is because I don't react to things the way they expect me to. I remember my mother being told that I had a very low IQ - around 40 - and I wanted to scream - no, that's not true! But I couldn't do it. It's terrible when you can't even stand up for yourself.

And it is my sincere, whole-hearted hope that more teachers, doctors, and autism specialists will understand that autism can make it difficult for a person to get their body and brain to work in a way that allows them to respond to others. And so that they understand that the ability to respond has nothing to do with understanding. I pray for this because it will help professionals provide better care to autistic people.

The author talks about himself on his blog: My name is Henry. I am 14 years old and have non-verbal autism. This is my blog. I write my posts on the alphabet board and my mom transcribes them onto paper and then types them here. Everything written here is my words unless otherwise stated anywhere.

The main goal of this blog is to educate people about what it means to be non-verbal autistic and to put an end to negative ideas about autism.

(Image description: A black-haired, light-skinned teenage boy. He is wearing a black sweater and jeans. He has blue headphones. He is holding a tablet - an alternative communication device)

Three of them are narrated by other autistic teenagers.
One of them is told by a neurotypical mother of an autistic teenager.
And three more are nonverbal autistic adults with a wide range of language skills, from those who can speak but find it much easier to write to those who have never spoken. I hope this helps you understand nonverbal autistics and help you overcome harmful prejudices.

Stories of nonverbal autistic teenagers:
1) Emma Zutcher Long: I am Emma
2) Philip Reis: My voice is all I have
3) Henry Frost: Love Instead of Fear

The story of a mother of a nonverbal autistic child:
1) Kerima Chevik.

Development of communication and communication in a child with autism. Teaching nonverbal children communication skills Limited interests and play patterns

Introduction

Interaction and development therapy

The Denver Model treatment method for autism

“Imitation” method of treating autism

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