“Children with ASD who are not talking by 4, are unlikely to ever do so.”
This advice was commonly heard when I was a student. Sadly, this distressing piece of information had caused many families to give up on their hopes that their child will ever talk. However, giving up before even trying is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You did not succeed because you have failed to try.
Children with ASD can Learn to Talk After Age 4
Thankfully, this pervasive point of view has to date, been countered. Ericka L. Wodka from the Center for Autism and Related Disorders in Baltimore, wanted to find out the veracity of this claim.
In one of the largest ever studies on this topic, her team included 532 children between the ages of 8-17. These children had been diagnosed with ASD co-morbid with severe language delays. Most of these children were either non-verbal, or were using single words or phrases without verbs.
Her team found that contrary to common beliefs, most of these children with ASD had developed “short phrases or fluent speech” by the age of 8 years. To put it in numbers, 70 percent of them had achieve speech using short phases while 47 percent were able to talk fluently.
Predictors of Whether a Child with ASD will Talk
In addition, the researchers also studied the factors that predict whether a child with ASD and severe language delay would go on to talk. The two key predictors were higher IQ (assessed with nonverbal tests) and a lower degree of social impairment. Unexpectedly, stereotypic behaviours and limited interests were not related to the potential for language development.
Why Social Skills are Important in helping a Child with ASD to Talk
These predictors are not surprising if you consider that ASD is not a speech nor language disorder. At the heart of ASD is a difficulty in social communication.
Many children with ASD have difficulty paying attention to, or lacks the motivation to be with another person. When this happens, they miss out on the thousands of opportunities to learn from others. These include social skills and speech on top of many other critical skills.
In addition, speech serves many functions. At the most basic level, it allows you to get your needs met. Many children with ASD do develop the ability to request for things or activities they want.
However, there is a qualitative difference between requesting and what many parents have in mind when they think about talking. What most parents desire is for their child with ASD to share with them about their day, tell them they love them, or even to argue with them.
These functions all stem from a desire to be social. Therefore, the more interest a child with ASD has in other people, the likelier that he will progress to more advanced forms of communication. Needless to say, a higher IQ simply makes it easier for a child to pick up this complex skill.
Conclusion
Many times, we jump into speech therapy by trying to make them talk. But if we work on the building blocks such as social skills and non-verbal IQ, then we are making it easier for a child to learn to talk.
Certainly, this study has given hope to families that their child with ASD will one day talk.
As Dr Wodka puts it, “If you continue to work on the language development and social goals, and continue to persist with those intensely through the early childhood and early-school age years, the majority of kids who are not using meaningful phrases by age 4 will be by the time they are 8.”
