Autism can have a huge impact on a person’s ability to communicate. In some cases after children have begun to learn and use language in the usual way they can suddenly stop using words to communicate.

The Daily Mail reported on a story about a young girl who suddenly stopped talking……….

“Autistic girl, 5, who didn’t speak for three years stuns her parents by suddenly asking for ‘more toast please’

For three years she had not uttered a word, communicating only through pictures.

Diagnosed with autism, Coco Bradford had begun speaking at the age of two – only to cease completely.

But this week her silence ended when, out of the blue, she asked her astonished parents for ‘more toast please’.

Her mother and full-time carer Rachel, 48, said: ‘It was a really magical moment – it was the first thing she has said in three years. 

‘Her exact words were ”I want more toast please”. She just kept saying it and we were just like “oh my god”.’

‘She looked so pleased with herself and was jumping up and down and just kept saying ”I want more toast”.

She added: ‘I am not surprised her first words were about toast. She loves it and has always eaten it. 

‘Like most kids with autism she has a very limited diet.

‘You are not supposed to show how excited you get as kids link power with that word but we just couldn’t control it. We were clapping and cheering.’

Like many children with autism, Coco’s language skills were delayed and she struggled to communicate. 

According to the National Autistic Society, typical signs are a lack of social instinct, an interest in things rather than people, difficulties with language, and finding comfort in routine and repetitiveness. 

People with autism tend to have all these symptoms, though to differing degrees. 

Coco found her voice again after starting a special type of speech therapy called Applied Behavioural Analysis, or ABA in September last year.

Originally developed at the University of California, ABA uses a system of rewards to teach a child skills and train them to behave according to social norms.  

Mrs Bradford – who lives in St Ives, Cornwall, with husband Luke and has four other children Bianca, 28, Chelsea, 25, Elle, 22, and Oakley, eight – said it had been hard for the family.

‘Coco was talking at 26 months but did not get to more than two word sentences,’ she said.
‘But her talking just faded away and she stopped responding to her name or making any eye contact. ‘You could tell she was just so frustrated. We tried a speech therapist but the last two years have been horrendous.

‘You could tell angry she was becoming with herself.’

Coco’s treatment was only made possible thanks to a fundraising campaign that has so far raised over £20,000.

Mrs Bradford said she had messaged Coco’s tutors to tell them of the news and said they were delighted.  

‘We waited so long for her to talk and for her to just do it unprompted was quite magical really.

‘It is just so lovely and I can not explain how happy we all are. The day after, my husband came home from work and Coco poked her head around the corner and said hello.

‘It has really opened things up and in just two days she has started using a lot more words.

‘The speed of how quickly she has learnt has shocked everyone. She is now shocking us every day with something new. 

Applied Behavioural Analysis, or ABA, was originally developed at the University of California.

It uses a system of rewards to teach a child skills and train them to behave according to social norms. 

Under the supervision of a trained psychologist, ABA tutors work with people at home and school, breaking tasks down into chunks which are repeated over and over.

They also teach parents the techniques. 

ABA claims it can be used to teach everything from toilet training and academic subjects to how to play and have conversations.”

Science Daily has also recently reported on how getting children to listen to various speech sounds can help them to develop speech, gestures and a sense of rhythm and melody.

Science Daily reports……..  “Children with autism and other similar conditions often have difficulties in several areas of communication. A new doctoral thesis in linguistics from the University of Gothenburg shows that these children can develop speech, gestures and a sense of rhythm and melody by listening to various speech sounds.

It is well-known that children with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, atypical autism and childhood disintegrative disorder (collectively referred to as autism spectrum condition, ASC) often have problems with gestures and the rhythm and melody of speech, yet studies in these areas remain scarce.

One reason for studying the sound structure of speech is that the development in this domain takes place during early childhood when we learn to distinguish between the different speech sounds and syllables in the speech stream. This is often problematic in children with ASC, since they may find it difficult to sort sensory impressions, to listen and see and experience their bodies simultaneously. In addition, some sensory impressions can be perceived to be particularly strong.

Children with ASC often have a good sense for details, and focusing on practising of sounds and syllables can therefore be used to achieve an interaction and to develop other linguistic areas.

‘We wanted to find out whether an intervention focusing on typical traits of children with ASC could be used to develop various linguistic skills, such as syllables and sentence construction as well as intonation and gestures,’ says Pia Nordgren, author of the thesis.

The hypothesis behind the thesis is based on theories about the human brain. The idea is that the areas of the brain responsible for the recognition and production of speech are stimulated by the listening and can therefore lead to the development of sound production in general, and also to more advanced syllable constructions and the use of new words. This could also affect the melody of speech, gestures and other areas of the child’s language.”

Read more on the Daily Mail website

More information is available on the Gothenberg University Website and on Science Daily

Written by Rachel Harrison, speech and language therapist, on behalf of IntegratedTreatment Services.