I recommend these options (Alternative and Augmentative Communication AAC) to the families I see…because it will give your child a way to express themselves, reduce frustrations, and it will support their speech and language development.

What next?

It will give your child a way to express themselves, reduce frustrations, and it will support their speech and language development.

At 2 years 6 months: Jordan had 8 words, he was playing with sounds, making sounds for animals and vehicles. When asked if talking was tricky he would nod head and sign “yes”.
Able to imitate sounds: p, b, t, k, m, s, g, sh

At 3 years 10 months: 13 words and his older brother had taught him “uh oh”! But this improved…by 4 years old, he had added another 6 and was combining in simple sentences such as “mum go”, “Cam, Dad, go”, “me too”, “mum car home” (this is typical for a 2-3 year old child). He was also combining 3+ words on his AAC modalities (predominantly using the iPad by this stage) however, he refused to use any AAC options from 4;6 years old as he believed he could talk instead. He was also telling us lots of lengthy stories, but it was unintelligible babble, with lots of intonation, facial expression, and gestures.
The most concerning time for me was when we were preparing for school… I was so stressed and anxious about how he would communicate and learn at school. Could he go to the same school as his brother if he were not able to express himself verbally? Would they even accept and include a child who expressed himself with a communication device? How would he do speeches, answer questions in class, show that he understood what he was learning, play with other children at break, ask for help?

I took Jordan to a Speech Therapist (previous work colleague who trained in the UK and was experienced with children with CAS) who introduced us both to the Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme when he was approximately 2;6 years old and over a couple of years, with practise in between sessions, Jordan progressed… there were times of plateau but he focused and attempted it all.

He turned 8 years old in October (2020), Year 4 at school, and having difficulty with ‘th’ sounds, and we focused on goals from Stage 4 of the Nuffield Programme. These included establishing the last consonants (r, th), establishing multisyllabic words and words with consonant clusters, phrase and sentence level tasks including articulation of grammatical words and word joining strategies, and to establish strategies for learning new words. He had highly supportive teachers and continues to enjoy going to school (most days!).

And considering the ‘f-words’ (ICF) he is doing really well… fun (tells jokes, plays games, enjouys outings with family and friends), functions in the classroom, at piano, Scouts, he enjoys a range of fitness activities like playing with our dog, playing soccer, flippa ball/minipolo, he has a great relationship with family, he has friends that he goes to birthday parties with, has regular playdates, and participates in games with at school, and his future… he wants to be a Scientist (this week)…