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In Swabodhini, a speech-language pathologist, performs a comprehensive evaluation of a child’s ability to communicate and designs and administers appropriate training.
The goal of therapy is always to improve useful communication. For some, verbal communication is a realistic goal. For others, the goal may be gestured communication. Still others may have the goal of communicating by means of a symbol system such as picture boards. Therefore periodic evaluations are made to find the best approaches and to reestablish goals for each individual child. Also work is done to reduce unwanted behaviors that may interfere with the development of communication skills.
Speech therapy involves much more than simply teaching a child to correctly pronounce words. In fact, we work on a wide range of skills including:
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Non-verbal communication. This may include teaching gestural communication, or training with PECS (picture exchange cards), electronic talking devices, and other non-verbal communication tools |
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Speech pragmatics. It's all well and good to know how to say "good morning." But it's just as important to know when, how and to whom you should say it. |
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Conversation skills. Knowing how to make statements is not the same thing as carrying on conversations. We work on back-and-forth exchange, sometimes known as "joint attention." |
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Concept skills. A person's ability to state abstract concepts doesn't always reflect their ability to understand them. We work on building concept skills. |
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The traditional approaches of insisting mastery of the formal properties of language are largely inappropriate when it come to helping children with features of autism. They need to learn not only how to speak but also how to use language socially to communicate. That includes knowing how to hold a conversation, thinking about what the other person in a conversation understands and believes, and tuning in to the meta-linguistic signals of the other person, such as facial expression, tone of voice and body language. It is important to remember that communication is as much nonverbal as it is verbal, and autistic people have great difficulty understanding nonverbal language. Therefore in Swabodhini, all these aspects are taken into consideration and each child is given the individual speech therapy program that works for him or her.
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