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These tips have been contributed by other parents, carers and professionals. We hope they will give you some ideas to try, but if you need further help why not post a question on our forums or talk to our resident Speech & Language Therapist.
Grandma's law
When asking someone to do something, try ‘Grandma’s law’ (also known as Premack principle). Place the demand first, followed by a favourite activity, eg: ‘Let’s do this first, then we can play ...'.
Word games
As a specialist teacher, one of my many tasks is to improve speech and language development. A great game to help improve vocabulary is to play "articulate". The rules: put some words onto cards and place them out on the table. Then pick up a card, describe the word without saying the keyword. The other player must guess the word correctly.
Be active
Being active and playful will greatly aid speech development. Acting out, using props and narrating the activity with enthusiasm is far more likely to engage. We would get a ball and pretend to kick it whilst trying to get our son to say the word ball. Much better than showing him a picture and urging him to repeat the word.
Afaisic
Check out Afaisic - www.afasic.org.uk for tonnes of useful advice for parents/carers of people with speech and language difficulty.
Be silly!
I find a good way to encourage someone to talk is to do something silly or act out of character. I also find if I imitate my son it get his attention, and he then starts to imitate me as part of the game.
Encouraging communication
Often we do so much for people they don’t have the need or opportunity to communicate. This is where ‘sabotage’ can come in. Put toys or important objects in a place where the person needs to ask for them; give a meal with no cutlery (again so they have to ask). Find ways to manipulate situations to necessitate communication.
Colourful semantics
If the person you are caring for is able to recognise details in photographs, there is a free downloadable programme that you could use to help teach the grammatical structures of English and also develop verb/noun vocabulary: Colourful semantics SALT resource
Words and feelings
My son has ASD and doesn't always appreciate the effect of his words, for example: "I want to kill you." I always try to use "when" and "feel" - "When you say you want to kill me it makes me feel very sad.”
Figures of speech
My daughter is 17 and has high Functioning Autism. She has struggled socially because she doesn't understand metaphors and figures of speech. eg, 'Every cloud has a silver lining.' She gets stuck on the meaning & will think,'What cloud?' 'How can a cloud have a silver lining?' etc for the next hour, missing the rest of the conversation. We now write down these sayings as they arise & have compiled a dictionary of their meanings. By regularly reviewing them, she has now begun to use one or two herself.
Avoid abstract phrases
Don’t use phases like 'soon', 'not yet', 'hang on' with people with autism, as these are often too abstract for them.
Learnbright cards
Teaching your child to understand how they feel is really important. If you play with the Learnbright Language of Emotion Cards your child will benefit by being able to experience emotions and give them voice together with learning the different words for all the emotions they feel. Suitable for use at home and at school from age 5. www.learnbrightgroup.com
Cut and paste colours
To teach Guy his colours I cut out his favourite Thomas the Tank characters and glued them to plain card so there were no background distractions. He found it much easier to identify and remember the colours of the characters that he was already familiar with. We made up games with the cards and then when we moved onto asking the colour of other objects, I had a reference to prompt him with. If he couldn't name the colour of the sky, a prompt of "What colour is Thomas?" usually got results.
Look at me
To help Aaron focus I hold up the toy we are talking about close to my eyes so that he learns to look at me when we are talking.
Choice makes conversation...
We find with Lucy that giving her choices encourages her to talk more.
Prompts
I regularly put things in my sons pockets in the morning when he is going to nursery in the hope that he will find them and it will prompt him to tell someone about it. For example we went to the safari park recently and had some left over tokens which had an animals face on it. He found the token later and was able to relay a wee bit of information to his nursery teacher about the day before.
Rhyme bag - objects of reference
I keep rhyme bags for each nursery rhyme. The 'Rhyme Bag' contains small props to entertain and keep focus.
Baa Baa Black Sheep - 'Rhyme Bag' contains: little black lamb, man, lady and boy character, 3 bags of wool (sew simple bags from satsuma netting and fill with short lengths of black wool.
Humpty Dumpty - 'Rhyme Bag' contains: Humpty Dumpty finger puppet, 3 blocks, 3 horses, 3 wooden soldiers.
Twinkle, Twinkle - 'Rhyme Bag' contains: Padded Star.
Sound and feel
When Ella was born (who has severe learning disabilities) she had problems with her speech. From past experience as a nursery assistant, I would put her hand over my mouth, and say the word, so she could pick up the vibration of the sound/s.
Make it mean something
The only sound Tracy can make is the ‘g’ sound. We have taught her to use it as a yes.
Be clear!
Our speech and language therapist taught us to give clear instructions (maximum of 2 information-carrying words) and use objects, symbols, signs or pictures to support words.
Level it up
Playing and talking are easier if you can see each other. Sit so you are at the same level.
Use words yourself
Do keep talking. We say out loud the words Bev would be saying to us so she can learn what she would want to be saying. “Want more?” “It’s broken”
Keywords
Izzy doesn’t understand very much but she does understand keywords, so we isolate and emphasise keywords ie, bath, bus, shops.
Too many questions
People learn lots of words from comments like “Look, the dog is playing with a ball, it’s like your ball”, and much less from too many questions or demands like “What’s the dog playing with?” “Who is playing with the ball ?”.
Make opportunities
People need a reason to communicate and the opportunity to have a go. In the nicest possible way we asked Charlie’s carer to stop talking for Charlie all the time and also to stop anticipating her needs. Charlie needs to be given the chance to communicate herself.
Ham it up
We find exaggerating our facial expressions and tone of voice really helps Tammy to understand us.
Make it fun!
Continue to make communication fun - that is the best motivator for some one to listen and communicate.
Attention please
To get Harry’s attention we always call his name before we speak. His brain works quite slowly so this gives him the chance to notice us and then prepare himself to concentrate on what we are saying.
Making conversation
I have bought a dry wipe white board and each day I draw a picture of a particular activity we have done or if something interesting happened. I draw the story and each time we leave the house I remind my son by showing him the picture of what happened and try and get him to tell people about it during the day. Or if people come to the house I ask him to take the board to them and explain what happened. He finds this really amusing and keeps his interest.
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