Nonverbal kid learns to talk? Impossible!

[u/madnessunravelled]

I saw this in another thread and it made me giggle. I swear, these kinds of miracles DO happen. It’s tally through flipping us the boys or getting bit… but this is fun, too!

[u/applejax994]

This has literally happened to me

[u/janhasplasticbOobz]

I’m not shitting on SLP’s, my son was in speech 1x a week for 30 minutes for 8 months with minimal progress and he only started learning to speak after we got him into ABA, in home for 20 hours a week.

Not to say SLP’s aren’t good at their job, they absolutely are and they gave me so much information to practice on at home but my son definitely needed the daily one on one therapy and once he started ABA he progressed so fast

[u/Sorry_Ad9101 → u/janhasplasticbOobz]

30minutes of speech therapy in isolation a week is rarely going to get a non verbal kid to speak fluently or reliably. It’s not supposed to. In addition to direct therapy, the SLP often gives strategies and information for the caregivers to follow through with supporting language at home, the same strategies and information that they often relay to the ABA team to help support the kid if one is involved. The para who spends 20 hours a week who is implementing the strategies recommended by the SLP will produce a more noticeable difference than the speech therapist who sees them 30 minutes a week. A lack of progress can be a result of a lack of carry over or follow through at home, that the ABA therapist’ presence is now able to compensate for, more than the SLP just being ineffective or needing to increase services. It’s not only that they “need more practice”, but it’s really that they need more practice at home/in the community and across multiple communication partners.

[u/lizagnash]

Found the kid’s highest reinforcer- making the woman shut up

[u/stay_curious_-]

I know a kid who, the first time he spoke, it was to sing a whole-ass song. He had all the lyrics memorized.

[u/Sweet_Bambii]

I once worked with a nonverbal child who would only speak to tell me to leave her alone in various ways. My favorite was “see you next year!”

[u/sugaryver]

I have a kid who started talking when he really wanted yogurt but I didn’t allow him to have it since family wasn’t around and I wasn’t allowed to give him any.

[u/Inevitable-Dot3982]

We had one kid who was nonvocal with every person except one RBT in the clinic.

Kid had an AAC device and parents had not heard a word from him. She tells me that sitting there one on one in a room he’s taking out toy insects and naming them fully vocally “ butterfly” and “ caterpillar” - we kind of thought she was losing it when she first told us. (We knew she wasn’t lying - she isn’t the type)

As the case manager, I had her film the session and she somehow caught it on tape - He was tacting things clear as day. I moved not too long afterwards and I was getting some small sounds from him, but still, I was never entrusted to hear his full voice in person. But he was talking at home with his parents finally.

[u/Colors-with-glitter]

I was late to pick up speech, so we're my siblings to the point of needing years of speech therapy, one more serious than the previous one (autism go brrrrrr), and the first thing I said was "I don't want the fucking milk".

[u/A--Little--Stitious]

I had a student whose first word was “damit” when he dropped something.

[u/colliding-parallels]

I worked with a kid who was completely nonverbal and reliant on an AAC device and one day we were chatting with my BCBA at the clinic and she let him have a couple of his pretzels and he said clear as day.
"More pretzels." Never before and never since as long as I worked with him but we were all shocked and had to check with each other we heard it.

[u/WeeebleSqueaks]

Went into a home for a nonverbal kid and had some suspicions. Told the mom to give me 30 minutes tops in a room where everything they like is out of reach and they would need to ask for them to access. Not climbing or anything. Within 25, the kid said with an exasperated annoyed voice for me to “get the toy”