Reducing Communication Barriers with Speech Therapy for Autism

Communication is the biggest gift enjoyed by human beings. Communication is what connects us with fellow beings and helps us express our feelings, share our thoughts and ideas and be an active participant in engaging with one another. A lack in communication skills or a difficulty in doing so can cause many problems to daily living. A person with Autism often faces these problems as the speech and language part of the brain is often impacted. Speech therapy for Autism thus not just enables a person on the spectrum to communicate better but also supports other treatments and therapies as the person is able to express better. This also in turn supports daily needs and helps a person with Autism be more independent.

The most important thing to understand here is that communication is divided into two parts – language and speech. Most often people confuse the two and thus misunderstand the signs and symptoms too.

Language

Language is the means to express our thoughts, feelings and ideas; verbally or non-verbally. Verbal language uses vocal symbols and non-verbal language uses facial expressions, hand gestures, body movements etc. Speech Therapy for Autism focuses on both language and speech to remove any barriers in communication. Language further consists of 3 components:

1. Form of Language
2. Content Language
3. Use of Language

A person on the spectrum may face difficulties with understanding either receptive language, or expressive language, or both. Such a person may show certain symptoms like:

• Limited vocabulary in comparison to his/her peers
• Difficulty in learning new vocabulary
• Difficulty in remembering key words or confusing verb tenses
• Repetition of words/phrases
• Showing frustration as a result of being unable to communicate or express
• Poor verbal communication
• Problem with constructing meaningful sentences
• Limited variety of sentence structure

Speech

Speech is also a means of communication that uses only verbal forms of expression and communication. It consists of 3 major components:

1. Articulation
2. Voice
3. Fluency

It is the combination of all 3 components that results in sound speech. A person with Autism may face difficulty with all three or any one, thus being unable to communicate soundly. A speech therapist for autism thus helps the person work on improving the speech. The common signs and symptoms of affected speech are:

• Repetition of sounds/words/phrases
• Adding extra sounds
• Pausing mid-words or mid-sentences
• Tension in the voice
• Distortion of sounds
• Harshness in voice
• Change in pitch/hyper nasality/hypo nasality

When the language or speech, or both, are affected it ultimately leads poor communication. A person who has communication problems is unable to express fully their needs and wants. As parents of children with Autism or even as caregivers our main aim is to help these people become independent and lead a happy and healthy life. Thus, occupational therapy for Autism is considered to be the most important as it supports the person in becoming completely independent.

Occupational Therapy for Autism can only be fully used to it’s best possibilities when the person is able to express, share and communicate ideas and thoughts. In that sense, speech therapy for Autism becomes the foundation for occupational therapy too. A communication barrier will never allow a person to be fully independent as they will not be able to express themselves or even share the brilliant thoughts and ideas that they may have. This inability can lead to a lot of frustration for a person with Autism and it’s important that they receive complete support to enhance their communication skills and fully express themselves.

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