Your AIM This Week:
Wordplay
Listen on the player below
This week, your focus is to strike the balance between expecting more language and longer phrases from your child, while keeping communication with them light and effortless.
Find new ways to turn saying words and speaking into play.
Give yourself permission to be a little more silly with communication to entice your child to want to share more of it with you!
As your child continues to develop their language, their spontaneous speech can be exciting!
In order to help them take the next steps to even longer sentences and more vocabulary, it may be useful to keep these ideas in mind:
Don’t talk FOR them.
Pause long enough to allow them time to formulate their own words.
Expect that they are learning new language skills every day, and be on the lookout for new sounds, new vocabulary, and new conversations that your child initiates with you so you can be sure to give them positive reinforcement for it!
Keep it playful!
Most importantly, AVOID making language a struggle.
If your child feels that language is work, too much effort, or that speech is an exchange of control between you, them, and the thing they want, they may be less motivated to try.
Instead, strike the balance: expect more in a light-hearted way. WORD PLAY!
Have an excellent week!

Jonathan Alderson
Autism Expert
Founder, ThriveGuide
Author, Challenging the Myths of Autism
Share this AIM
What do you think of this week's AIM?
New to AIM? Get your weekly AIM email free!
By signing up, you agree to receive emails from ThriveGuide.
Explore All AIMs

Be Curious
Children and adults with autism experience their environment and social interactions differently. We have been afforded insights into these differences, often sensory-related but also cognitive, emotional, and physiologically-based, from first-hand reports. There are now dozens of books written by autistic individuals, including children. They are insightful and essential to learn from for parents and professionals alike...

Autistic Voices, In Their Words
On this week’s A.I.M., we look at voices of children and adults with autism to understand and to gain insight from their personal lived-experience. And we explore the tension between prioritizing learning from autistic lived-experience and recognizing the broad diversity within it. If we are all unique and different, then how relevant is one personal experience?

Wordplay
This week, your focus is to strike the balance between expecting more language and longer phrases from your child, while keeping communication with them light and effortless. Find new ways to turn saying words and speaking into play. Give yourself permission to be a little more silly with communication to entice your child to want to share more of it with you!
Created by Autism Specialist.
Jonathan Alderson, Ed. M., draws on 25+ years of supporting autistic children.
Completely free resource.
No strings attached. Just a way for us to support as many families as possible.
Completely free resource.
No strings attached. Just a way for us to support as many families as possible.
Created by Autism Specialist.
Jonathan Alderson, Ed. M., draws on 25+ years of supporting autistic children.



