Our son
would repeat words after he heard them, referred to in language
terminology
as "echolalia". He would parrot the last word of the sentence if
asked a question and occasionally would let loose with an entire script
from a video tape or computer game (delayed echolalia) as if
talking
to himself while in his car seat and even in his sleep. This led
me to think that there was nothing wrong with his ability to speak but
perhaps with the understanding of words.
I thought perhaps
he heard words
and sentences more as neurologically typical people may hear music or
other
sounds; more of a whole pattern of noises than individual words
carrying
meaning on their own. This hunch appears to be right on since now
at the age of 7 he is beginning to ask what various, ordinary words
mean.
It is almost as if he is learning a foreign language.
I found this
very interesting
and used this as the basis for the in-home individualized therapy
program
we have developed for him. After his halt in language and emotional
development
at about 18 months of age he interacted less with other people
and
his play routines were limited to trains, balls, sand and water.
Other than those four activities the only other thing he liked to do
was
to sit on my lap and watch one of his favorite video tapes or computer
games. During this time between 18 months and 3.5 years of age I
tried to interest him in as many things as possible but the most
intriguing
options were always things that were related to one of his own intense
interests. So... we played with trains, we painted trains, we
read
about trains, we sang about trains, we counted trains and pretended to
be trains! (Well, I should say I did all these things
while
he watched most of the time. He preferred watching at first but
after
seeing the actions enough times IF he found it interesting he
would
eventually start imitating the behavior, much as he did language.)
Since he was so
into video tapes
and computers I selected programs that would model appropriate play
behaviors
and positive phrases in hopes of widening his verbal and social skills
base. I pictured it as loading his mind (database) full of words
and phrases and play skills that he might be able to access in the
future.
The thing I didn't know was whether these phrases would eventually be
able
to be used in appropriate situations. At about the age of 4.5
years
I noticed he was able to use phrases from videos and computer programs
to express himself as needed at times. For instance, when he
wanted
to eat something he might say, "I'm so hungry I could eat a
horse!"
from one of his favorite videos instead of saying "Mom, I'm hungry!" or
even a more simple, "Eat". He continued with the repetitive
scripting in unrelated situations too, almost like he was reading a
story
to himself but as he grew, so did his ability to use the memorized
phrases
in appropriate situations as a real method of communication.
As we
continued to see progress
we simply refined the selection process for video programs. When
we saw a gap in his skills I would search for a decent role model with
an inviting theme. We were lucky that he enjoyed The Magic School
Bus, Little Bear and Blue's Clues by age 5 because much of his language
acquisition came from educational programming like those. We did
a lot of re-enacting skits from these programs, especially Little Bear
and Blue's Clues.
Over time
I noticed there
were some skills that programs couldn't focus on enough, so I started
taping
some older children in specific situations as role models. These
situations were mostly social behaviors like sharing a toy or
comforting
a hurt playmate. I started out making video tapes of our
excursions
to interesting places so that we could go over them verbally later
after
the excitement of the trip was over. (these "field trips" were to
places
like train rides, museums, bus rides, subways, or any of his
obsessional
interests) I sandwiched small clips of role modeling in between
segments
of our field trips to keep his interest. Later I discovered an
easier
way to keep his interest was to simply add a high interest object to
the
role modeling tape. (One segment is a trip to the park playing in
sand (obsessional interest) where 2 children role model taking turns
politely
with the shovel and pail. Here the obsessional interest is built in but
in other cases we have to add it.... we may be showing how to say
"hello,
how are you today?" and we would start the tape by showing a toy
fire truck or a clip of one of his favorite video tapes then do the
role
modeling followed by another clip of his video tape. This keeps
his
attention throughout the tape.)
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