Lea's diagnosis of autism was made when she was 5 years old. Compared to when most of the other parents knew that there was an issue with their child, this was on the late side. Lea was born in 1992 and seemed to hit the milestones on schedule. She loved letters and was able to identify them at a really young age. She loved to memorize lines from TV shows or from books and could repeat them to you impeccably. But her ability to communicate was very delayed. She didn't really put together complete sentences until she was 5. At this age, the sentences were very simple ones. She was also extremely shy around children her age. Lea's preference was to be at home or in her room playing with her toys. At this point, we knew Lea needed the services of a speech therapist. She received speech therapy at school and also got it privately. It was obvious that the work did not end with these professionals. We would have to do our part at home.
The fact that Lea was echolalic, though worrisome to us, was actually an advantage. This was something confirmed by a psychologist who we consulted. At least, we knew she was verbal. She loved books so we provided her with the books she was interested in. Audio books were not readily available at this time so I used a tape recorder and taped myself reading the books to her. Most of the time, I just spent the time and read to her. One of the most effective things we did at home was put a password on the door to her bedroom. Each day had a different password. To get in the bedroom, she had to read the word and use it in a sentence. It didn't have to be a complicated sentence. A simple sentence would suffice. This was made into a game and that's what made it enjoyable for her.
To help with language, it was crucial not to stress Lea out. Lea, even to this day, does not do well in stressful situations. Then again, who does? When she wanted something like a cookie or a drink, I encouraged her to ask for it in a sentence. If she said "cookie", I would prompt her by saying "Can I please have a cookie?". Lea would then repeat the whole sentence, albeit slowly. Prompting was an important tool and I hoped the sentences would come naturally to her eventually. In time, they did. Time is operative word. The other important thing to remember is repetition. The practice of prompting had to be repeated over and over until the skill was acquired.
When we realized that social skills were another issue to deal with, we figured out that we might as well take advantage of Lea's ability to memorize lines easily. We used index cards and wrote sentences that applied to this situation. In this particular case, it was how she was to make friends. The index cards had sentences like "Hi, I'm Lea. What's your name?", "What's your favorite color?", "Do you want a cookie?", "Do you want to play hide and seek?". I was told that autistic children do not learn incidentally. That is, they don't learn by observing other children. So what they need to learn has to taught. This is what I had in mind when we asked Lea to read the index cards over and over and memorize the lines so she could use them in the future. We did role-playing where these sentences were used. Once again, here we made it a game so it didn't feel like some kind of a "class".
Language and words go hand in hand. Fortunately, even at a young age, Lea loved books. We did our absolute best to provide her with all the books she wanted to read. Buying them was not the only way to do this. The library was another resource. Barnes and Noble and other bookstores were another. We used to go to Barnes for a couple of hours and just read and not even buy any books. There was no way we could buy books every time we went to these book stores. After all, we used to go a lot. Being a lover of books and magazines has been a life saver for Lea. Later on in life, she also learned to love writing.
The methods described here are not from a psychiatrist or psychologist or autism expert. They are from a mother who has an autistic daughter who is now 28 years old and has just graduated from college. It's from someone who loved their daughter dearly and wanted to do the very best for her. I hope what I described here helps another parent. We are, after all, in this journey together. Our children's success is our success too.
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