A NEW METHOD OF SPEECH INSTRUCTION FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

A NEW METHOD OF SPEECH INSTRUCTION FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
Kotsopoulou A, Gasteratos A, Gyftogianni M, Troupou A
Day Centre for Children with Developmental Disorders, Messolonghi, Greece

Background: A new method by the name ‘Phoneme Touch and Say’ is currently being tried at the above Day Centre for children with autism without speech.

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness in therapy of ‘Phoneme Touch and Say’ on a sample of young children with autism who have had no functional speech. Impetus for the initiation of the present study was the success with an 11.6 yrs old autistic child who with treatment over a 13 month period, developed communicative speech (55 words), and has during the following year with further speech therapy developed a vocabulary of more than 500 words.   

Methods: The method consists of a system of hand cues, which represent speech sounds, and show how and where the sounds are made by manipulating the articulators by touching the lips, chicks, nose. The method adds visual, tactile and kinesthetic information to help distinguish speech sounds.It helps both comprehension and expression. In comprehension the method requires minimum effort by the child (joint attention), and in expression it requires the ability to imitate. Three children with autism (fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria) without speech were selected for treatment. They were all males of age ranging from 3.9 to 5.0 years. All three children have had therapy sessions twice a week. 

Results: With improving joint attention and imitation of hand cues all three children have responded well (number of sessions 16 to 18). Up till now they recognise most phonemes of the Greek language, they make syllables with them and name pictures starting with consonants they have already learned.  

Conclusions:   The effectiveness and usefulness of this method are worth exploring further.