Speech Therapy
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a mental condition that comes with various amounts of challenges to an individual such as social skills, repetitive behaviors, nonverbal communication, and difficulties with speech. Due to the lack of knowledge of what causes this spectrum disorder, and the challenges it includes, professionals such as speech therapists come in handy when it comes to lessening the extremities of these challenges. Speech-language therapies essentially address challenges that an individual on the spectrum may have with language and communication, as it further helps people enhance their verbal, nonverbal, and social communication skills. The purpose of speech therapy is to help one communicate in more functional ways that are useful to daily life activities.
Speech-language pathologists (also known as speech therapists) play a crucial role in developing communication and verbal skills. These therapists are especially skilled individuals, as they are required to have a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology, as well as pass the Praxis exam in order to work with and diagnose an individual.
Communication and verbal-related challenges vary differently from person to person, as there are individuals on the spectrum who love to talk, but have difficulties in things such as keeping a conversation flowing, and understanding body language. It is also possible for one to not be able to speak at all. Due to the huge variety of patients that may require speech therapy, there is no specific therapy that is more effective than the other, as there are many other factors to be taken into consideration (age, the functionality of the patient, etc…)
A speech therapy program starts off with an evaluation given by a speech therapist in order to assess the person’s communication and verbal strengths as well as challenges. An example of a possible evaluation would be an oral-mechanism exam, primarily used if an individual has speech sound concerns. In this exam, the therapist will examine structures involved in the production of speech sound (lips, teeth, tongue, palate, etc.) and note down any obvious difficulties/ challenges.
Moving forward, after the examination, the speech-language pathologist will create individual goals for therapy. Such goals include improving spoken language, learning nonverbal skills with gestures and signs, and learning to communicate using alternative methods such as pictures and technology.
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