Speech-Language Pathology Services for Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Pediatric speech-language pathologists from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital’s Speech-Language Pathology Services evaluate and treat children from birth to age 21, including those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.
 
Children with autism spectrum disorders may have the following communication difficulties:

• No speech, or very limited speech
• Difficulty expressing basic wants and needs
• Problems following directions or understanding words
• Problems answering questions
• Poor play skills
• Problems making friends
• Problems dealing with changes in routines

Early intervention and using a team approach are important in the evaluation and treatment of communication disorders for children with autism spectrum disorders.
 
 

Evaluation Services

Our speech-language pathologists provide comprehensive speech and language evaluations for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. The evaluation includes:

• An assessment of your child’s social-communication skills, as part of an overall evaluation of speech and language skills
• Recommendations to improve these skills, including:
  • Frequency and duration of services
  • Goals
  • Strategies
  • Techniques
  • Parent/caregiver participation and training

It is also important to have your child’s hearing evaluated to rule out hearing loss. To schedule a hearing evaluation, please contact the Packard Children’s Hospital Pediatric Audiology Service.
 
 

Treatment

One of our speech-language pathologists may recommend speech therapy for your child. The speech pathologist will work very closely with other members of your child’s care team and your family to provide services. This may include parent/caregiver participation and training. Each speech therapy session is 30 or 60 minutes and may occur one to three times per week. Therapy lasts between one and six months.
 
The goal of speech therapy is to improve your child’s social-communication skills through one or more of the following:

• Joint attention training – Helping your child to coordinate attention between an object and a person in a social context
• Modeling – Using live or video modeling to teach new skills
• Naturalistic teaching – Creating and using opportunities to improve communication skills during the daily routine
• Peer training – Teaching a sibling or other child in the family to use supportive strategies when playing and interacting with the child with autism