ABCs To “Breaking The Code” Of Language
When you look at the alphabet, there were certain constants there... each letter had a specific "look", a specific order in the alphabet itself (i.e., C always came after B but before D), and, one or two specific sounds.
As Zachary sat there and watched his alphabet videos, videos that were now close to 2 years old, I remembered that 2 years ago, Zachary's absolutely favorite software program was Dr. Seuss' ABCs (By A Broderbund Company). We had paid about $14.00 for this software. Zachary could sit there and either listen to a narration that went through each letter of the alphabet, big and small (the “Read To Me” option) or he could click on the interactive part of the program that also went through all of the alphabet, big and small (the “Let Me Play” option). Each letter had a little “script” that went along with it. For example, on letter “A”, it said: “Big A, little a…what begins with A? … and then it gave a lot of words that began with “a”…all of these words appeared on the screen, along with a picture of each item/word and so Zachary could read along as well as see “what” that was - thus, the label was associated with a visual object. The “Let Me Play” option allowed Zachary to discover all kinds of fun hidden things that related to the specific letter on the screen. This was a fantastic program for any child. It took about twenty minutes to get through the “Read to Me” and Zachary used to love sitting there and listening to it. Zachary could listen to it three times in a row in one sitting. He also enjoyed the “Let Me Play” option tremendously.
Zachary used to watch ("Read To Me" option on the CD) or play ("Let Me Play" option on the CD) this program over and over and over again... and he absolutely loved it. I would say he watched that video or played the software for a good month or two. It was right around the time Zachary started to play with this software that he was confirmed to be autistic by a pediatrician.
Within a month of Zachary's confirmed diagnosis, I had a dream - a dream of "a room of colors". So powerful and vivid was this dream that when I awoke in the morning, I told my husband he had to watch Zachary... that I had to paint - and so, I recreated the room of colors I had seen in my dream. It had taken me 3 days of constant painting. A picture of Zachary's Room Of Colors was provided below.
Colors were also key in triggering language/communication in autism. This had indeed been true for Zachary.
When Zachary was diagnosed with autism, he was approximately 2 1/2. At this point in his life, Zachary spoke but a few words... and he did not know the alphabet... so I thought! The very day I completed Zachary's Room of Colors and the paint had dried, Zachary entered the room. I had gone into that room to "admire it" and make sure the paint was dry at 6:00 am. Little did I realize that Zachary had followed me in there.
Upon entering the room he went up to the "alphabet wall", touched the letter "H" and said: "AAAAACCCHHHH". He then went up to the "A" and said: "AAAAAAAAA". I was in absolute shock. I had no idea he even knew his letters... he barely said 5 words and had given absolutely no indication that he knew any letters. Indeed, like so many other children, he had lost almost all speech. At the moment this happened, you could have knocked me over with a feather... that was how absolutely unbelievable this was! Within a few days, Zachary had not only showed me he knew the entire alphabet, he also knew his numbers, his shapes and a few other things as well. Within no time, I could label anything simply by touching it and saying the "label" for that thing. I touched the carpet and said: "carpet", touched the window and said: "window". Anything I now "labeled", Zachary could repeat right away, and he knew it. One "labeling" was all it took ... and Zachary seemed to remember the "labeled object" for good! Those first true signs of Zachary understanding communication, of his understanding the alphabet and all that "labeling" had started in May of 2000.
As I watched the alphabet video on 1/20/02, another thought crossed my mind. I knew for a fact that "order" somehow played a role in many of the issues with autistic children. If autistic children had a problem with order, perhaps they needed to start with the very basics in everything... the "parts" to the "whole"... including the basics behind speech...and that meant the alphabet. I had come to understand the need for a building blocks approach to language in January of 2002. It would not be until several months later, however, that I would see this need to understand the building blocks, the "parts" to understand the "whole" actually applied to everything in the life of the autistic child. It finally all came together when I truly realized that "partiality" (a subset of order) was really the issue for these children... not "just order". Again, it now all made so much sense!
The fact that a "building blocks" approach was needed for language certainly explained why some children had acquired language while others had not. Some had been taught language by parents who perhaps only stumbled upon the proper "order", while others had failed to do so.
Most children acquired language by having parent first begin to "label" things for them. Labels were critical to all children in acquiring language... in making associations that "things had names"... and "things" were then seen as "parts" to other things.
There was a saying, that “the whole was defined by its parts”. For the autistic child, this was indeed a critical observation! Until the child could "define" the parts, he could not determine the whole. Therefore, in as much as a word was made up of "parts" - letters -, it was critical that the autistic child first understand the concept of letters to then be able to progress to the next level in speech - labels and phonics - then the next level - actual written words - then the next level, the definition of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.), then, the next level, etc. Whereas for a normal child what came first were labels, then conversation, then the alphabet, words, etc., for the autistic child, that order was somewhat reversed. Before there could be conversation, there first had to be an understanding of "where" the parts to conversation came from. Hence, in the autistic child the proper "order" for language acquisition was that of: the alphabet, phonics, words, words defined as sentence parts, and so on. More on the proper "order" for the autistic child was provided below. Suffice it to say for now, that the alphabet was first in the line of things that needed to be learned - the first domino that allowed all others to fall into place.
Thus, the key to teaching language to the autistic is simply to build from the lowest building block up in the correct order!
Like with many autistics, Zachary's speech had started with first echolalia and then "ordering language". But, I had not recognized these for what they were. In my eyes, Zachary's "real speech" - speech I understood - had begun with the alphabet...and then phonics... not with words or "reference communication" as would be the case for a "normal child". Indeed, Zachary's first form of "reference communication" had been the alphabet... having finally "broken the code" of the alphabet, he now had a "reference point" in terms of these symbols and what they meant. Each reference point had a label, each letter had a name of its own... and that first point of reference provided that first critical cornerstone that had laid the foundations to support all future language!
Zachary had been almost completely silent until I had painted my "room of colors". Only when he saw the "room of colors", did "what he had seen" on the computer and on TV provide the association he needed to start "uttering" letters. Again, I wanted to emphasize to parents that I truly believed color was also key in triggering Zachary's language and as such, I strongly encouraged all parents to review my section on the importance of color in the life of the autistic child. By painting my "room of colors" I had taken these "letters" on the computer and brought them into his reality by actuality painting the letters on the wall... and painting them in various colors. The letters became "part of the wall". It was as if, all of a sudden, "he saw them"... and when he did, he started saying them, one after the other. In thinking about the inability to process the parts without first understanding the whole, you would think that the "letters" would not be perceived as "part of the wall"... that, indeed, like the "parts" to so many other things, they would cause a sense of confusion and not be understood. So, what was it that had been so different about these particular letters... why had they all of a sudden been "seen". The answer, I truly believed, was in the fact that each letter was painted in colors. Colors were truly a "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow in the autistic child's life as they provided for him a coping mechanism... a means by which, I believed, the autistic child somehow generated his "own code" of the world in order to make sense of it.
Once the code of letters and colors was broken... and I did believe in the possibility that it was a 2-part code, involving both letters and colors, communication could then begin... in its many forms... phonics, labels, etc. The first building block, the necessary cornerstone, the cornerstone to support the entire "structure of communication" had been laid! Not only were letters labeled, but they were now understood to be "symbols" representing something else... each letter represented a specific sound that could now be pronounced... the sounds of the alphabet itself (I was not talking about phonics here... just the actual "alphabet sounds"... as you would hear them if you just recited the alphabet). The "letter symbols" had now been "labeled" ... and Zachary was able to easily generalize that concept to "other things"... numbers, shapes, physical objects, etc.
In Zachary's "room of colors", numbers and shapes had also been painted... they were made "part of a whole", part of the wall and, again, they had been painted in colors. An important thing to note here was that Zachary actually knew the letters and I did not even know it. I had wasted a lot of time by thinking/assuming he did not have this knowledge.
If I had to do it all again - if I were a parent whose child had not yet mastered the concept of the alphabet, I would seriously consider doing colorful letter representations from the very start... and if that did not work within a week or so, I would go back to the drawing board and look for what else was missing in the equation. Zachary also had an alphabet train video that provided the concept of parts making up a whole (train cars put together to form a train). This video provided a lot of spinning letters. Undoubtedly, that had somehow helped too. My point here was simply to emphasize to parents not to waste time on things that were not working. We had a tendency to underestimate autistic children because they could often not communicate back to us. As I discovered, however, that did not mean that certain concepts, such as letters, were not already known. And, as such, the key was in "getting the child to utter what he did know". If something was not working... do not wait months to throw it out... to try something else or look for "what's missing" in your tool set!
I was not much for singing in those days... but, I could certainly see how the "alphabet song" (also on this Dr. Seuss CD) could be used to teach the alphabet since autistic children responded very well to music... and a song, in and of itself also helped with issues of the parts making up the whole since by definition, a song had a beginning, a middle and an end... and the alphabet song was not "complete" until it was "all sung"... thus, this child's song showed how parts (i.e., letters) fit together to form a whole (the alphabet). In actuality, I did not know if Zachary "really" learned the alphabet from the song, the actual going through of the alphabet on this software package, or his alphabet train video... all options were there - I was just thrilled that he finally knew it.
So, for parents having a difficult time with obtaining any speech in their children, I would suggest trying the "alphabet song" first, then showing the child the alphabet on a poster that provided each letter in various colors ... where the child could see all the letters in the correct order at once... a "border" type poster would probably be best.... just one long line with letter after letter (as opposed to a more compact poster where "you run out of room and have to go to the next line).
I had taken the letters and "made them part of a whole" - a physical wall - a new entity, and I had used colors - something I now believed to be so critical for these children. That whole could have been a song... or an alphabet border poster. But, my "whole" was a wall. If you think about it, a "wall" was an easier entity than say, a book, for an autistic child to perceive, if I was correct and their issue was one of an inability to process the partial. To the autistic child, a "book" was made up of "parts"... pages, cover, back, stories in text, pictures, etc.... and to the autistic child, perhaps for him to "perceive" and "understand" the "whole" when it came to the alphabet, he needed to "see it all on one page"... just as on the wall in my room of colors with no “other things” to decode (such as words, pictures, physical parts to a book, etc.). Thus, how the alphabet was taught was critical. I did definitely believe colors needed to be involved and that the "whole" needed to provide some continuity (such as a song, a border poster, etc.). Do I know the exact combination yet... no... but, I do believe I understood some critical pieces that needed to be there... and that now, it was really a matter of parents putting these suggestions together to find the optimal method of teaching the alphabet. It may be that a combination of methods were needed... colors, songs, videos, etc. But, one thing was certain, I did believe that there was a "key" to the proper way to teach the alphabet to an autistic child and as such, this was one area that needed great study since it was truly the one key to unlock all communication!
This theory as to the fact that there was a "right way" and a "wrong way" to teach the alphabet to autistic children certainly explained why some children acquired language and others did not. Some of us may use tools to teach the alphabet that showed the entire thing all at once... like a poster... while others try to use books... a constant source of frustration for the autistic child who has not figured out that a whole (a book, or the alphabet) was made up of its parts. Some parents used a pen... with a single color... others used wooden puzzles with multiple colors. The fact was that there was enough variation in "how" parents tried to teach the alphabet to truly explain why some children "got it" and others "did not.
For Zachary, once the alphabet was learned, and each letter had been associated with a symbol and a sound (as in the alphabet song), the concept of "a label", a "symbol" representing something had now been solidified. All of a sudden, I simply had to label something once, and Zachary remembered the label... he remembered "the association" of "this label" for "that thing". I easily took the concept of a "label" for each letter "off the wall" and started to apply it to everything in life.