Yes, We CAN Communicate

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade.

Make life take the lemons back."

~Cave Johnson, Portal 2

One of the most well-known signs of autism is delayed speech. Some autistics are nonverbal for most or all of their lives. And, unfortunately, a lot of people will view that as the person being unable to communicate. That's just not true.

Communication does not automatically equal speech. If you're looking after a young baby, you can expect them to have a handful of words at best, but you wouldn't say the baby can't communicate. Why is it any different when the person is older?

Someone who doesn't communicate at all is someone who's fine with sitting in one place and not moving all day. While I suppose this is possible, that would indicate severe psychological illness, not necessarily autism. There are so many ways people can communicate besides speech:

• A regional sign language, such as ASL
• A set of home signs determined by people in the family
• Programs that speak for the user, either by having them tap pictures or write their own text
• Typing on a keyboard
• Writing out what they want to say
• Communication books or charts
• Gesturing, pointing, or leading a person (to the fridge to ask for a drink, for example)
• Using two points of reference to indicate a choice (e.g., communi-bands)

Speech is far from the only way to communicate. If you give a nonspeaking person a tool or two, you may be surprised to see what happens.

But how do you teach an autistic these methods? I'll answer that in a short series of future posts.