As Holistic Speech-Language Pathologist, I am trained in a variety of disciplines. I use them as appropriate to help my clients.
In Process Work, or Process-Oriented Psychology, strange and different signals or behaviors are to be honored as leading to new awareness. One way of bringing them into focus is to amplify them, and one method of amplification is imitation. Another method might be verbal suggestion, such as, “That’s a great sound! Do that again.”
The first time I met him in March 2011, DM, a mostly non-verbal autistic 10-year old boy, was wandering around the house making strange noises in his throat. Rather than trying to train him out of making the noises, as a traditional speech therapist or a behavioral therapist might, I decided, following the Process Work model, that there must have been something important to him about making these sounds. Since DM was mostly non-verbal, I decided to just imitate him. His throat noises continued for just a while, perhaps for several minutes. They soon stopped and did not recur for several months. When they did, I again decided to imitate him. Again, DM stopped making the funny throat noises.
DM may have been seeking external auditory feedback about how he sounded--maybe his pre-teen voice was changing and he was exploring his new capabilities; once he received the feedback, he was satisfied. Or perhaps he liked sounding different from other people--perhaps he liked being unique; when he was no longer unique, he no longer received reinforcement for his unusual behavior. In any case, the method worked!
If you would like me to work with your child’s communication abilities and behaviors, please call:
Allison J. Edwards, MA, MS, CCC-SLP
Communication Facilitator and Holistic Speech-Language Pathologist
TheraSynthesis, LLC
719-964-4275
therasynthesis@live.com
