“Just because a person can’t speak doesn’t mean they have nothing to say.” A very important reminder from a parent of a non-verbal child.

Communication is a basic human need, allowing people to connect with others, make decisions that affect their lives, express feelings and feel part of the community they live in.

People with little or no speech still have the same communication needs as the rest of us. We may just have to work a bit harder to find a communication strategy that works.

The following tips have been contributed to Netbuddy by parents of children and adults with special needs. We hope you will find them useful, and please do share your own!

1. Make it mean something

Katie can clap her hands so we have taught her to clap when she wants to say yes.

2. Level it up

Playing and talking are easier if you can see each other. Sit so you are at the same level.

3. Talk about it

Eddy can’t speak and also has limited understanding but it is important to keep talking to him about what’s going on.

4. Eye contact

I put stickers on my forehead as a target for my son to look at. This reminds him to look at people’s faces, so people feel more like he is engaging with them.

5. It has meaning – it’s just not obvious

An autism diagnosis is relatively rare in girls; Asperger's is even rarer. Boys outnumber girls with autism by 4 to 1; in "high functioning autism" and Asperger's, the gender ratio is estimated to be 10 to 1.1

For years autism was seen as primarily a male disorder, certainly not the only developmental disorder to affect more boys than girls. But some researchers are asking whether girls with ASD are going undiagnosed, especially those at the high-functioning end of the spectrum like June's daughter?

Do girls simply do a better job masking their symptoms? Are their symptoms being missed by diagnostic tools that may be better suited to boys? As researcher John N. Constantino M.D. put it, are doctors looking at girls through "boy-colored glasses"?

One psychologist said girls are being under-diagnosed. "Girl can slip under the radar. Their autism looks different," said Shana Nichols Ph.D., whose practice in New York includes girls like June's daughter who are often diagnosed later than their male counterparts.

"There is a prototypical profile of autism which is primarily based on male autism, "said Dr. Nichols, author of Girls Growing Up on the Autism Spectrum. "All the research up until recently has been based on a male prototype."

There is less research on girls because there are fewer girls with the diagnosis. In an oft-quoted interview in 2007, Ami Klin Ph.D., director of the Yale Autism Program, said that girls with autism were "research orphans."2

Autism Speaks, the Autism Research Institute and the MIND Institute at the University of California-Davis invite researchers and the public to attend “Immunological Factors, Genes and the Environment in Autism: from Research to Treatment.” The educational session will take place Saturday, June 1, from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Time at the UC-Davis MIND Institute.

The session is free both online (webstreamed) and in person, but requires registration. For more information and registration, click here.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, asked 224 college students to read three vignettes describing social situations on campus. The main character in each story was a college student who behaved in ways characteristic of an individual with autism. This included narrow interests and difficulties with social communication.

The investigators told some of the participants that the young man in the story had autism. Others were told that he was a typical college student. Still others weren’t given any label.

The investigators then used a questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward persons with disabilities. It included three sets of questions on the students’ thoughts and feelings toward the young man in the stories. One set of questions measured agreement with statements like “We might get along really well.” Another set of questions asked the participants to rate the likelihood that they would “find an excuse” to leave or avoid the young man. A third set of questions gauged the participants’ emotional responses (e.g. nervousness, fear, etc.) to the fictional character.

On the first two measures, students who were told that the young man had autism responded significantly more positively toward him than did the students who weren’t given a label. In other words, they expressed more interest in spending time or becoming friends with him.

Read more here.

Recently archived webinars

• Tips and Tools for LD Students in Higher Ed from ATCoalition
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• Instructional Materials: Making the Shift from Print to Digital
• The iPad in Special Education: App Overload! from AbleNet University

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

The Big Red Safety Box is a free-of-charge toolkit given to autism families in need as a means to educate, raise awareness and share simple tools that may assist them in preventing, and responding to, wandering-related emergencies.

NAA’s Big Red Safety Box includes the following resources:

1) Our Get REDy booklet containing the following educational materials and tools:

• A caregiver checklist
• A Family Wandering Emergency Plan
• A first-responder profile form
• A wandering-prevention brochure
• A sample IEP Letter

2) Two (2) Door/Window Alarms with batteries

3) One (1) RoadID Personalized, Engraved Shoe ID Tag*

4) Five (5) Laminated Adhesive Stop Sign Visual Prompts for doors and windows

5) Two (2) Safety Alert Window Clings for car or home windows

6) One (1) Red Safety Alert Wristband

Read more here.

• f you were good friends and in contact often before the diagnosis, don’t change. Your friend may not have as much time to see you in person, but you can stay connected by phone. Perhaps they will need to see you more and need a shoulder to lean on more often.
• Stay connected by continuing to invite your friends or relatives who have a child with autism. It may not be as easy for them to get out, but invite them to your party. If they can't make it, they'll let you know. If they can, they'll be there.
• Find out a little bit about autism. Go to a few websites of reputable autism organizations to get some more information of what autism is all about.
• Listen more than you advise. It is tempting with all the autism news stories in the paper to share everything you hear but resist the urge. Your friend has probably heard it all. Instead, offer him an ear, as well as some practical help.