Activities for preschool autism speech therapy

1. Activities for preschool autism speech therapy Children diagnosed with autism often find it challenging to communicate effectively. Some of them are non-verbal, some are verbal but find it difficult to hold conversations, whereas others find it difficult to comprehend body language and other communication cues. Preschool speech therapy helps children with autism overcome these obstacles by introducing them to activities that train them to engage in useful and functional communication, both verbal and non-verbal. Let us look at a few such activities used in preschool autism speech therapy. Activities to introduce essential words This needs no introduction; if your child finds it challenging to voice their desires or wants, teach them essential words that will help them convey their needs. Examples of such words include "hungry", "help", "no", "stop", etc. Incorporate these words into memory games and activities, so children pick them up faster. This will slowly build the child’s vocabulary as they grow older and help them communicate affirmatively and effectively. Activities to promote non-verbal communication Verbal communication is often considered the only form of communication. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Children diagnosed with autism are sometimes non-verbal for long periods. In these circumstances, forcing the child to become verbal is not only going to make the child shut everyone out. Instead, teach the child to communicate whilst being non-verbal. Communication boards are most commonly used to promote non-verbal communication during special child therapy. The children are encouraged to point to words on the board that describe their emotions or an activity that they wish to do. This will ease the child into communication and help them overcome their speech difficulties. Activities to decode body language Children with autism find it difficult to read body language and facial expressions. This proves to be a major impediment in effective communication. What can be done to help the child overcome this challenge is to teach the child well-known body language cues and facial expressions. Charts can be used with different expressions on them labelled with the emotion attributed to the expression; the same can be enacted, so the child gets a live view of what these emotions look like in person, and the child can be asked to identify different emotions, and engage in the same to express their various emotions. These preschool speech therapy activities will prepare your child for communication with people they meet outside their homes.