articulation concerns | Autism PDD

As my son is acquiring much new language, articulation is getting much worse. He has started to talk so fast that only I can understand him. I didn't realize how bad is was getting until everyone keeps asking me to translate for him. While I'm excited that he is communicating, I'm concerned about articulation. Anyone else have this problem? He does have an apraxia diagnosis and low muscule tone in the face. We do daily oral motor exercises and the VB/ABA tutors practice his targeted language cards. Any other suggestions? Some of it is that he needs to slow down, but he doesn't have the desire to do so.

Hi

I would love to hear from parents of other children who face these issues, and tips on what they do to address these issues.

Thanks,

Tiffany

my 3.5 year old son is on target for expressive/receptive language and
has a severe articulation delay. people understand 20-40% of what he
says (i understand 90%).

we have a speech therapist who does straight articulation and nothing
else. a good speech path can help with these problems. we see her for an
hour every week and then she gives us things to work on with the ABA
therapists during those sessions. it has helped but it is very slow going.

the other thing i am going to do is get an evaluation from beckman and
associates. although it is a somewhat invasive technique it is suppose to
help with oral/motor issues. we live in the area that debra beckman
actually works from so we are going to see her but i know she has trained
therapists across the country. i am going to get an opinion from her to
see if she has any other suggestions then what we are doing.

it is extremely slow going and frustrating and we can't let up. if we know
he has a word (articulation correct and all) and he doesn't say it right we
have to make him repeat until he does. it's tiring but worth it in the end if
he can communicate with others!

L

A good ST can work on articulation.

My son has a minor articulation issue and we have 1 IEP goal for it.  Interestingly, this is the one thing the ST doesn't think is related to his autism at all.  He just happens to have an odd articulation thing as well and they work on it at speech.

I think our BCBA does a better job of addressing articulation than our SLP as well.

Bonus--I haven't hear of Beckman and Associates. What does the technique invovle?

We basically made him slow down and repeat everything he said again until
it was intelligible. We would model the correct way to say it and have him
say it back. It is a very painful process but guess what, he is speaking much
better. When my son was 3-4 1/2 yrs old, people would ask me what he
was saying quite often. Now I rarely hear it. Everyone has to do it. The
therapists, family members etc., It is working for us.

KathyK-that's good to hear that people can understand your son now.

Initially, I was just thrilled to get language. That was such a big accomplishment. Now, we need to start to address the articulation. Our BCBA brought up the problem last week and I'll see her again tomorrow. He is speaking so fast and running everything together. I'm not overally impressed with our SLP, but we are on the waiting list for another that I really clicked with. Maybe, that will help as well.

Ditto here...dd has apraxia, low tone in face, & mixed tone in tongue...the
artic problems & also tongue thrusting. ST spoke to me the other day
about it & her concerns (basically, she feels dd should be further along w/
artic & functional language). Even she's scratching her head. We
switched to 1 x a month because of school. But, ST was very hesitant--I
honestly couldn't do the drive & all...just needed a break. Yes, I feel
guilty!

My nephew has PDD & apraxia also, well, he is 6.5 and on some days you
cannot understand a word he says. Other days, he does alright & you can
get most of it, but he struggles big time. He'll say a sentence as one long
word, or just use odd tone etc. He stutters & stammers sometimes too.
For him, his speech has gotten worse since age 3, something I'm
concerned about for dd.   Perhaps there is a subset of verbal kids who
have this issue? I wonder if there's any add'l info on it, and how things go
in the later years.

For dd, I would say 80-90% of the time, other people do not know what
she says, it's hit or miss if dh & I understand what she says. I read this
the other day, "By 36 months, children's speech should be 75-100%
intelligible." Why does my dd not get ST through school??? GRRR!

The advice we've been given is to keep w/ the oral motor exercises,
flashcards, & have her repeat sentences (which, this seems to really
irritate her, so we don't often get anywhere with it). The hope is,
eventually her mouth & all will get smoother at making all those different
sounds come out. OT also to help. Wish I had some magic advice for ya.
If I come across anything, I'll pass along to you two.We have artic. problems as well.   Even I'm having a difficult time understanding him, and I was pretty good at it.  My son is the same age as yours.  His speech therapy is a joke.  They're emphasizing so much on teaching stuff like "-ing", words that end in ing.  They need to be concentrating on functional speech and he doesn't even know the words without the ing.

I'll be watching this thread to see the suggestions.  We have been trying to repeat the correct way to articulate the word, and he still repeats his way.

Good luck!

We have the same issue.  One thing that seems to help is for him to see the word written down.  If he can see the letters, he can sometimes do a better job of articulating.

Another weird trick we use that seems to have a great effect is to take our pointer finger and "draw" the rhythm of the word on his forearm.  I don't know how to explain it exactly, but drag your finger and then tap at the end for a word that has a last hard vowel sound that he is dropping, or drag your finger in short strokes that correlate with the syllables.

It was initially done to help with s blends, but we found it helps with all of his articulation...it is almost like it puts it through another sensory organ besides his ears and helps him organize his talking a little better.  I don't really understand why it works, but is seems to.

Our SP was pretty useless when I asked about the articulation issues. My
BCBA was right on it. (he had another boy that he also helped with this
issue. We implemented the modeling procedure across the board all day and
everyday and it is working. I too was so glad that my son was talking and
having conversations that I overlooked the articulation issues for a long
time. He would be playing with our neighbor and my neighbor would ask me
every minute "what did he say". I thought well he has friends and he talks to
them but they just cant understand him.   We seriously made him repeat
himself so much that he eventually got in the habit of saying it correctly the
first time. We have been doing this since last October so its only been 11
months.
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