Online autism speech and language programs

How we achieved the level of speech and language our boys now have is of interest to many parents.

Val and I receive hundreds of messages everyday seeking information and advice based on our experiences with Conor and Eoin. Many of these e-mails relate to online speech and language programs, how they work and what families we work with think of them.

Today we received a question from a mom with a 5 year old non verbal child. She had been working with an online program, and is interested in what other options existed based on our experience. For the purposes of the post we have called mom Joan. We hope this post will be helpful to you and welcome any questions you may have!

Hi Joan,

Given our work with Disney and our autistic sons, we have looked at several online autism speech and language programs. These can offer a real alternative to parents who have difficulty accessing more traditional services like speech and language therapy or who want to supplement services already in place. As parents of special needs children, everything depends on the nature of your child’s language delays. “When your child is not talking” as Val once said of Conor and Eoin, there can be several reasons why this may be happening. So it’s important to understand your child and use this knowledge to plan the best therapies going forward.

Understand your child: online autism speech programs

The first question from Joan was about a recent online speech and language program called Gemiini. Gemiini falls into a group of programs that treat a child’s ability to hear and pronounce words. Children who have difficulty hearing (auditory processing disorder) and / or difficulties in expressing speech (Apraxia of speech). There are several related listening programs, the most popular being Fast ForWard. These programs generally work when your child’s problem is largely limited to speech alone. If this is where your issue lies then both Gemini and Fast ForWard are well worth looking at. If your child has difficulty hearing speech I tend to suggest Fast ForWard. If the issue is more articulation, then Gemiini. None of these programs effectively teach concepts, just speech. This is also an area where speech and language therapists excel and I would recommend you involving one in your decision if possible.

Our experiences with Conor and Eoin

In our case with Conor and Eoin, we discovered their issues were deeper than just speech. Yes, they were not talking. But the most important issue was to do with delays in learning concepts and thinking in language. This is often called a central “language disorder” and is very difficult to treat. So for us, we had to go down a route of teaching language visually through Disney. We integrated this process with speech development, but it all started very much as a visual exercise which worked for the boys.

This is a video of the approach developed at Animated Language Learning and completed at a leading US speech and language school. We are positively biased about using this approach, especially given that our twin autistic sons are now the developers of this program!

Summary comments

Viewing your child’s difficulties as a parent, I would suggest this. Look at Animated Language Learning if you feel it would be better teaching concepts and language visually and build speech and language on this foundation. Look to Fast ForWard if your child’s issues are primarily about being able to hear language. If the issue is more about articulation, try Gemiini. If you are not sure what to do, start with Animated Language Learning.

I feel its great that all these programs are emerging now and that parents are at the core of their development and use. Having said that, there is no silver bullet in establishing speech and language in a language disordered child. Any effective program will require daily use and lots of effort on behalf of both parents and child. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are either in line for the Nobel prize or they’re fantasists.