Do you known anyone with mental disabilities who didn't begin speaking again until a certain age? Explain.

Question

Do you know anyone with mental disabilities (Autism, Mental Retardation, other related disabilities) who either didn't speak his / her first words or stopped talking and didn't continue to talk until a certain age? What's his / her communication like to this day? Does he / she have little delay in speech skills or so? Does he / she have a certain mental capabilities, learning abilities, and speaking levels? Please tell me what you know and be specific.

Answer 1

I worked with a child who is a teenager now who has never spoke in her life she communicates with sign language and picture charts.  The best thing to do is find a way to communicate with the person by sign language or picture charts.  The more the person is able to communicate the better the person behaves and learns.  Delayed language can be hard I would suggest speech therapy if this person is in school then they have to provide speech therapy.

Answer 2

Do you know anyone with mental disabilities (Autism, Mental Retardation, other related disabilities) who either didn't speak his / her first words or stopped talking and didn't continue to talk until a certain age?    

My daughter. She has autism.  She didn't start talking till around three. It was an unintelligible version of the alphabet.  Next came numbers, then shape names.  

What's his / her communication like to this day?  She's 9-1/2 now.   She can now make her wants/needs known. She can share things she finds funny, or that upset her.  Communicating things from her day at school is very difficult for her, and things that upset her usually don't come out until around 10:30 at night.  Even then, I can't always decipher what she's trying to say, but a call to the teacher usually clarifies it. Between us, we always get to the bottom of things.  

Does he / she have little delay in speech skills? Most definitely.

Does he / she have a certain mental capabilities, learning abilities, and speaking levels?   I've always said that math was her first language.  She is self taught in simple math and reading.  She's obsessed with money, and can make change faster than anyone I know.  She was converting quarters to dollars (and visa versa) at around age 5-1/2 out of the blue.  

She's also excellent with pattern recognition. She was beating the game of freecell at age 4 within 5 minutes.

She learned phrases to speak from playing roller coaster tycoon and following the animations around the park.  She also learned language from reading books. For a while her speech pattern was "Look, there's the dog shouted Kimberley"  adding editorial comments to her speech.  

She is a very "hands on" learner.  She has mastered the art of baking and cookie making.  She can half or double a recipe on the fly and bakes from scratch often.

Her speaking levels are very young for her age, and sometimes the repetitive obsessive comments and scripts are enough to drive you batty.  She is capable of generating original sentences as well, though that is more difficult for her.  

Her ongoing issues are still problems with clear communication, social awkwardness, and anxiety.  She has problems with obsessive tendancies, repeating phrases, thoughts, pages from books or lines from videos.

I think I answered all your questions.  I'd be happy to clarify on anything if you'd like.