April is World Autism Month, which is a time to raise awareness about autism and tools that help children on the autism spectrum. One of those resources is MetroEHS, a pediatric therapy company.
When it comes to why children diagnosed with autism may struggle with communication, board certified behavioral analyst Deanna Coker with MetroEHS says, “autism is a developmental disability that is really characterized by the impairments of social interactions and communication.”
With that, children with autism will not develop communication the way other kids typically do, which is usually by watching and imitating their environment.
One of the characteristics of the diagnosis of autism is struggling with communication and with language and speech.
“It is very likely that a child with autism will be visited by a speech pathologist,” said MetroEHS speech therapist Kris Krajewski said. “We work to figure out where the barriers are to communication, where they are located, and then work in trying to show alternative ways of getting information into and back out of.”
“There are about as many interventions as there are kiddos,” Krajewski said.
There are many different interventions because everyone is differently wired. Something they share with children with autism or those who might be struggling with communication, is an AAC device, which stands for alternative and augmented communication. It’s basically an iPad loaded with a specific software that is only intended for communication. Children can select words so that they can express themselves.
There is also a pecs book, which stands for picture exchange communication system.
“What pecs allows for is for a child to communicate via pictures, so we identify a child’s wants, needs, and loves, and then once we have those, this becomes their voice, and they are able to find what it is they want and then they can hand that picture over to their parent to request what it is what they want,” Coker said.
MetroEHS has 14 locations across Metro Detroit, including three more on the way. To learn more about MetroEHS, watch the video above or click here.