At Rhys’ three year developmental check, the health visitor sat with an assortment of toys and papers in front of her. “Rhys, can you stack the blocks?” she asked, placing three inch square blocks in front of him.
Rhys paid no attention to the lady and casually placed one block on top of the next with no effort. He managed eight blocks all sporadically aligned but perfectly balanced.
I didn’t gasp in amazement or shine with pride at his efforts. Rhys built block towers all day long. He hadn’t followed an instruction, he had just seen blocks in front of him, and done instinctively what he knew and loved.
He failed every other test that day. He failed because every test required Rhys to follow an instruction. A bundle of words that were just noise to Rhys from a strange object that sat in our living room.
From that day on, he failed every “test” because of the communication and engagement element that is vital to prove Rhys could do something. It was the foundation to everything in order to move forward.
I had a little boy who could not talk, but even more relevant was that he couldn’t understand or process language. A simple request to a three or even four year old of “pass me that toy” while gesturing to it with pointing, made no sense to Rhys. The physical action of identifying an object coupled with words, was foreign to him and just a jumble up of sounds and hand movements.
My strategy was to get him to understand a handful of words and associated actions. Things we could build on, and add to engagement opportunities.
I would place an object in his hand and say “Take to Daddy”, initially taking him by the hand and getting him to deliver the object. Through repetition, these physical prompts associated with words, started to form connections in his mind that made sense. He began to follow the commands without fail.
Things were slow, but we kept on powering through.
As I sat on the floor this evening reading to Rhys’ older brother, Rhys sat playing with a Lego helicopter. He spun the propellers around, enjoying the motion. However Lego is only a pile of blocks at the end of the day, and a vigorous spin will always end in a disastrous way.
“Mummy, help Rhys” he asked, holding the propeller out to me. The decapitated helicopter lay on its side about a meter away from me on the carpet.
“Rhys, get helicopter” I said, pointing to the red lego toy. “Mummy help” responded Rhys, touching the propeller in my hand, reconfirming his request. I tried again but with a different word. “Rhys, helicopter here” once again pointing to it. “Mummy help, broken” Rhys replied, getting slightly frustrated. I gave it one last try, ” Rhys, pass helicopter”
Something triggered in his mind and in the split second that he looked at me, I knew something was about to happen. To my amazement, he followed my finger and reached for the helicopter, bringing it to my open hand.
Something turned in my tummy in excitement. I placed the propeller on top of the red roof, gave it a test spin and held it out for Rhys. Of all the action words I used, none were part of Rhys’ mental dictionary, until I used the word “pass”. The word “pass” was what made a difference today. The word “pass” is going to open up so many more opportunities going forward.
I held out the helicopter to Rhys, but before I removed my grasp I asked, “What do you say?” “Thank you” he replied.
I smiled and eased my hand from the toy.
Things will happen when you least expect them, and often it is just slight changes like a different word or action, that result in amazing things.
I was so proud of Rhys tonight, as I watched him return to spinning the toy. I was proud at how far he has come and the development barriers we both break down together.
In 2013, the epic film telling us all to just ‘Let It Go’ hit our screens, with crazy round bellied snow men and reindeer with strange impressions crunching carrots. Little girls ran down hallways in snowflake encrusted gowns, trains of material temping the naughty foot to entice an unfortunate trip up.
For those without kids, you may think the magic of Elsa faded as those young children grew up. But I can reassure you that the magic still goes on and she has still not let it go!
My youngest (now three) is the next generation of frozen enthusiasts, even getting hooked on the sequel (dvd release), and my eldest from the first generation of frozen excitement, still has the magic in his bones.
Santa was thoughtful this year and sent an amazing Easy Keyboard Tunes book of Disney songs, including all the classics, from bouncing Tiggers to the tune of the monkey wanting the secret of man’s red flower. But it would not have been five star Amazon rated without the Frozen classic, and thankfully it did not disappoint.
The book’s crisp pages were turned with each song receiving a gasp of excitement, by my eldest, as he marvelled at the selection of choice.
“This one he shouted” and placing the book on its holder, he lined up his fingers on the keys.
Now my middle son, Rhys, loves music, but has become quite particular about the songs which can be sung and anyone in the house striking up a tune. Many reasons spin through my mind, from the lack of perfect pitch his audience emanates, to the song versions not correlating to what he has playing in his head. His autism means he likes things in a certain way, and lack of tune does not rank highly in his book.
Music has always been part of his life.
But we carry on, and find new songs which he doesn’t know, therefore ensuring the tune can form a new connection and experience for him. We have got very creative over the years.
So when my eldest decided to strike a note it was going to be interesting to see Rhys’ reaction.
The first few notes started to be played representing the first words of the classic tune we had all grown to love (or is it hate?) As the notes moved through the song, in a clunky, unusual flow, I could hear the familiarity in it.
My eldest didn’t sing the words, the concentration of the first run through of the notes was enough at this moment. But as we listened, a tiny voice who had never sung the song in his life suddenly came to life in the next room.
🎵 Let it go, let it go … 🎵
“Did you hear that?” I shouted to my eldest. “Rhys is singing the song” he responded.
We both beamed with pride at what we had heard, these moments are magical in our house, the sudden demonstration of development or proof that we are moving forward with engagement, speech and interaction. The sign that we are doing things right!
We immediately both broke into tune, ecstatic that Rhys had picked up on all the years of frozen excitement and was ready to experience in a joint love.
🎵Can’t hold it back anymore Let it go, let it go Turn away and slam the door I don’t care what they’re going to say …🎵
We were both belting it out, the keyboard notes all over the place, our inability to multi task so early on in our musical immaturity. We were bopping around thinking we were West end stars, both understanding the leap forward Rhys had made in recognising a piece of music and then assigning the words.
But our impromptu party was abruptly halted, as Rhys entered the room and screamed full pelt at us. We felt like misbehaved school kids who had taken a bit of classroom jubilee a step too far, the noise trailing down the corridors to the heads office.
The singing stopped, the dancing halted, and my eldest clawed back the excitement placing his fingers calmly back on the black and ivory to play the notes properly.
But the words didn’t stop,
🎵 Let it go, let it go 🎵
Sang Rhys, all on his own without the fuss of us crazy nut cases!
The one question that parents, with non-verbal children, always ask other parents is, “When did your child start to talk?”
I asked this question hundreds of times, to parents in my social circle, to professionals and in user community forums. Each time, I got a range of answers: “Lots of children have speach delays” “His older brother is probably speaking for him” “My son didn’t talk and then just started speaking in sentences”
And the list went on. I kept reassuring myself that there was nothing wrong and that Rhys would speak in his own time.
After months of speach therapy and very slow progress, I was still extremely confused. I wanted to know the timelines for getting Rhys to talk, but it was all unknown and no one told me what to expect.
After loads of reading, I finally came across what I call “The Communication Pyramid”. As soon as I saw this, it all started to make sense.
The Communication Pyramid
Every person who learns to talk goes through different stages. We all start at the bottom of the pyramid being non-verbal and unaware of our surroundings. This was where Rhys was at 2 years old. Totally in his own world, zero sound and totally unengaged.
A child needs to move through all the levels of the pyramid to start communicating verbally. Some are quicker than others, and some (like Rhys) need the extra support to progress.
After seeing this image it made me realise that there were progress markers that would allow me to track against. Rhys was not going to wake up one morning and start speaking. He needed to move through the different stages.
In the case of Rhys, he was non-verbal at 2 years old. I distinctly remember that it took a lot of work on the first stage of the pyramid to even get him making a verbal sound. It was only when he was 3 years old that I heard a sound from him. Not a word but just a vocalisation. It took another year before his first word and then one more before we started to get a few two word phrases. We are still on the journey, but at least now I have something to track this against. It is a long road and not something that is going to happen over night.
The understanding and following of instruction is progressive. He started to understand certain instructions from 3 years old, and this is improving all the time.
I still cannot imagine asking Rhys “How was your day?” and getting a response. Every day after school I just need to assume it went well by the smile on his face.
I have no idea of any aspects of his day, or the names of any children in his class. I have to count on teachers letting me know of any issues, or his non verbal cues as to whether he is upset or unhappy.
I know it will come and it will be something I have waited years for. I am lucky in that Rhys is moving up the pyramid and through the continued hard work we all put in, he will reach the top in his own time. But we need to remember, you dont need to reach the top of the pyramid to communicate. It is a communication pyramid, where communication starts from the lowest layer even when words are not involved.
When everyone’s children are conversing and talking in sentences, it is extremely disheartening to watch your child sit silent and not utter a sound.
I have been in the situation of my son not talking. Not saying his first word until he was four, a developmental milestone that other children make at around a year old. In our case, my son’s delayed speech was linked to autism. But there are many other reasons for a child not developing speech, and it is best to discuss with the professionals; your health visitor or GP to ensure you get the support your child needs.
However, while you are waiting for answers, there are some things that you can do to start the journey towards communicating with your child.
1. Mimicking
As much as you may want to play a certain game or toy with your child, they may not want to do the same. Similarly, they may not want to play it according to the instructions or the rules as they are printed on the box.
You need to change your outlook on this. Remember that you are finding a way to engage with your child and prompt interest with them. You need to play with what they want, in the way that they play it.
If your child is not interested in toys and prefers jumping around, or spinning, or singing, you need to join them in this game.
Copy what your child does, jump with them, mimic pushing the wheels of a car alongside them, or hide under the blanket with them.
This copying of your child’s actions, will firstly create a sense of interest. They will see you doing something they enjoy and feel a connection to the action, creating engagement.
2. Move Everything Up High
If your child is bringing you items to open or helping themselves to toys they want to play with, they will continue to do this without words or a request. They will not see the need to engage with you to get what they want, therefore not needing to prompt communication or future verbal requests.
So take the key items and move them out of their reach. You will start to feel like your nan who has strange items in strange places, like the rice cakes next to your dinner plates, and a line of cars on the top shelf of the bookcase.
The objective is to get your child to point and request an item. If they are dragging you by the hand, let them lead you to the item, this is the starting point. They now need you to get what they want, and they need to engage with you to get it.
3. Choices
After having moved everything out of your child’s reach, you should see a change in them, either pointing to the object or leading you to what they want. Most of the time you will know exactly what your child wants, and you can now use this to your advantage.
If you child has dragged you to the fridge and you instinctively know that the only thing they want out of the fridge is an apple, choose another item you know they do not want. Now provide them a choice between the Apple and the unwanted item.
You are not looking for a speech or a verbal response at this stage, just an opportunity for them to request the item. This may initially be a split second of eye contact, a point, or a verbal babble. The aim is for them to provide some sort of response before they get their reward, in this example the apple.
Over time as engagement and interaction develops, you can provide choices of two different items which they will want, and see if they can choose between them.
4. Pictures
Never underestimate the power of pictures.
The route to developing speech involves the need to initially associate a spoken word with an object, feeling or instruction. Just by constantly speaking these words, will not necessarily provide the association. This is why it is important to develop engagement before you can expect to generate understanding and eventually speech.
Print out pictures of activities and place these on the wall to allow your child a choice of things to do.
Use pictures to show the sequence of events and where you are going. This will reduce anxiety and provide a method to let your child know what is about to happen, or if they are about to go into the car or a walk to the park.
Pictures can be used in the physical form, with them being laminated and attached to sequence cards or wall charts. Alternatively there are numerous apps which allow you to store pictures digitally or allow you to immediately take photos of different objects and present them to your child on screen.
5. Makaton
Makaton is a fantastic way to enhance understanding and encourage speech. It is easy to learn with the signs being very intuitive and easy to remember.
Using makaton does not stop the development of speech, but enhances the process. It will allow your child to communicate when they have no words, reducing anxiety and frustration.
There are many YouTube sites and videos of the most commonly used signs which can allow you to get started, and if in doubt, turn on CBeebies and let Mr Tumble do the work for you.
6. Crouch Down
In every engagement with your child make sure you are at their eye level. Crouch down to give choices for their request, and allow them to see your face.
When you have the item they have requested, hold it up to the side of your face and repeat its name. Your child may not want to look at you, but holding the wanted item next to your face, will allow your child to see your facial expression and muscle movement out of the corner of their eye, linking it to the pronunciation and sound of the word.
Learning to talk is not just about verbally pronouncing the sound. The facial muscles need to develop and move in the correct way to make the appropriate sounds. The only way to learn how to move your face to produce the correct sound is by seeing others do it. Seeing the multiple facial muscles move and associate them with language, is key to learning how to talk. It is then through practising the movements and hearing the sounds, that speech can be formed.
7. Entering Their World
The world is full of metaphors, and it was something I took time to get my head around. As I mentioned above, it is extremely difficult, but don’t try to inflict your view of how things should be done, or what games and toys your child should play with onto your child.
You will progress a lot quicker and be a lot less frustrated if you use your child’s interests or ways of playing. Once you get the engagement and interaction, you can start to push the boundaries a bit, but you first need to do things their way.
Let your child choose a toy to play with, or if they are most into physical play, use this to interact. My son loves tactile play and numbers, so we would throw him up in the air while counting the number of throws. This evolved to us asking him “How Many?” and he would hold up his fingers requesting the number of throws.
We later used numbers to engage with every day objects, like counting ducks or asking how many rice cakes he wanted.
8. Pausing and Waiting
A few seconds silence can feel like a life time, but that silence can work wonders. When you are waiting for an interaction or prompt from your child, don’t feel like you need to give in after a few seconds. Take your time, sit on the floor and wait.
If you get no response, prompt once again and wait. I have had many occasions of sitting on a cold kitchen floor, asking if my son wanted an Apple or an Orange. Some of those occasions have lasted over half an hour, but I waited and I persevered.
When you eventually get that engagement, then a sound and then a word, all those hours sitting on a cold floor will have been worth it. I also suggest keeping a cushion close at hand if you foresee this as being a frequent occurrence.
9. Use Simple Language
When you are speaking to your child don’t talk in long sentences with large confusing words and multiple pieces of descriptive language. Limit your sentences to a few words, ensuring they are simple and to the point.
Always use sentences in the order of how the activities are going to occur, as this will void confusion about what is about to happen and in what order. For example instead of saying “We are going to the park, so get your shoes on”, change this to simple language with the activities in the order of occurrence, “Shoes then park”.
10. It Takes Time
You will have heard the stories of some children not talking and then talking in sentences, others take a bit longer, and some take years. You need to go through the process with your child. The initial engagement, the understanding, the physical facial development, the babbling and then eventually word formation.
It took my son years, but I never gave up. I continually worked on engagement and understanding. I used pictures and makaton to support communication, and when we got sound, we worked on each syllable of the word until he said it.
Lastly, it is important to note that communication is not only verbal. It is done through interaction, expressions, signs and gestures. We all naturally look to verbal communication as the key element for conversing, but there are a multitude of methods before you even get to the spoken word.
Before my son could talk, I wrote down all the ways he was currently communicating, these included leading me by the hand, pointing, and shouting. Over time these methods of communication increased to requests via the use of pictures, makaton signing, and verbal prompts. He was communicating before he could say his first word, and I could instinctively understand his wants, and needs.
Look to identify all the different methods of communication. Stop focusing just on the verbal, and build up all the other methods, as these will aid the communication and engagement between you and your child.
If you are looking for more details, or step by step instructions on how to implement any strategies used for communication and engagement, have a look on the strategies area on the A&Me home page.
When your child doesn’t speak, all you dream of is to hear their voice. To listen to what they have to say. To have them answer a question you so desperately want to ask.
When Rhys was three he had ten words. Those words were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
Numbers were his world, and still are.
He loved flashcards, and would pile them up, holding them in his hand, a support blanket, counting their contents constantly. He would find the fancy educational cards that marketing companies had devised as the best mathematical toolkit for young children. He would find playing cards, and would count the number of spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. Puzzle pieces would be collected into a pile, or little wooden toy tiles, or coins from a toy till and then shifted through and their totals determined.
I would sit next to him and watch as his finger moved touching each image on a card, his mouth speaking the number as he counted. Once finished he would take the next card from the back of the pack, bring it to the front and start his count once again.
Over time he started to tolerate me counting along with him. It took time, but often he would scream back at my interruption to his game.
I managed over time to allow him to take control of my finger, and instead of him touching each picture on the card, he would guide my hand to each object and count.
I was in. I had opened the door to his world.
Months passed, and cards continued to be Rhys’ passion. But I knew I had to find a way to pull him away from his numbers and introduce more words. Numbers were not going to help him request items or move forward to becoming more independent. Words had to have context and meaning.
By the age of four, I was constantly counting along with him, and decided to find a way to introduce the words for the images on the cards.
“One shoe” I said one day as Rhys placed my finger on the first image of a shoe on his number five card. As he heard my words, which now included something additional from the norm, he kicked off. He screamed but retained my finger on the first shoe image, waiting for the word associated with it, the word “one”. The word all by itself.
But I refused to back down. I repeated “One shoe” and then forced my finger to the second image next to it immediately stating, “Two shoes”. I thought that if he realised that we were still counting, and that the process was still the same, he might accept the change.
Rhys was not happy with the change, but I persevered, and over time he started to realise that we were still counting. My plan started to work.
From that point onwards, I used numbers in everything. When we were in the park, I would crouch down to his level, point and say “Look Rhys, three ducks. One duck, two ducks, three ducks” When I was dragged to the cupboard by my hand for food, I once again would crouch down and say “Rhys, one rice cake or two rice cakes” I would never get a response, but new words were being added to our engagement.
It took time, a long time, years in fact, but it worked. We started to get new words. But more importantly, Rhys’ engagement increased, he was becoming aware of other things in his environment. The numbers interested him and allowed him to count real world objects, outside of his world of flashcards.
We limit the use of flashcards now. They tend to close him off from the world, but yesterday while I was clearing out a drawer, Rhys found some old number puzzle cards which had been hidden months ago. He immediately shuffled through them, like he did years ago, and started to count the images.
This morning he sat next to me and took my finger in the same way he had done a few years ago, and looking at me said, “Count with me” As he placed my finger on the first picture, I said “One”. He paused and without moving my finger he look up at me, waiting.
That’s when I realised that I had done it wrong. I had not counted the little picture of the Seahorse.
“One seahorse” I corrected.
Rhys then moved my finger to the next seahorse, and looked up and me, full eye contact – the strong engagement we had worked on for so many years. “Two seahorses” I responded, his reward for his eye contact.
We have come so far. A game that we played so long ago, came back to show us the progress we have made. And that progress has been gigantic.
Things take time. Find your child’s obsession and use it. Add words to their interest. Use their excitement as a tool for engagement.
And don’t ever give up!
I didn’t!
🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏
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