Are you looking for ways to help your child have longer conversations and connect with others more easily? Research shows that there’s a lot you can do during the everyday interactions and routines you already have with your child to build their social communication skills.
The TalkAbility™ guidebook is for parents of autistic children between the ages of 4 and 8 who are speaking in sentences and having conversations.
TalkAbility helps you make the most of your child’s unique strengths and preferences to help them find more joy and connection in their interactions and to foster mutual understanding between your child and the important people in their life.
What Parents Learn:
The TalkAbility guidebook offers parents practical strategies to:
- Understand their child’s perspective and help them understand the perspectives of others
- Encourage their child to understand non-verbal messages within the social context in which they are communicated
- Support their child to have longer, more meaningful conversations with both adults and peers
- Foster their child’s friendship skills
Highlights:
- Illustrated examples and concrete suggestions for implementing strategies in your child’s everyday life
- Checklists to understand your child’s learning style and sensory preferences, and to understand your own interaction style and how it may affect your child
- Conversation and Play Checklists to help guide you in supporting your child’s interactions
- Suggested children’s books, visual helpers and social stories
Benefits for Parents and Professionals:
Parents:
The strategies you learn in TalkAbility are child-centered, meaning they make the most of your child’s unique enthusiasms, strengths and preferences, as well as the everyday routines and interactions that are comfortable for them. By using TalkAbility strategies, you help to expand your child’s conversation and play skills in the context of the things, people and topics that matter to them, making the learning both meaningful and ongoing. You also learn how to better understand your child’s perspective and how to help them understand yours, which may help you connect and have more fun together.
Professionals:
If you’re an SLT or other professional who supports families of autistic children who are speaking in sentences and are having conversations, TalkAbility can be a beneficial addition to your clinical toolbox.
You can use TalkAbility to:
- Supplement home programming and enhance your 1-1 sessions with families
- Extend intervention support into the everyday routines and activities that are meaningful and fun for the child
- Explain complex concepts and strategies to parents using simple language and clear examples
- Support parents and children to connect, have more fun together, and understand each other’s perspectives
- Involve parents in the goal-setting process.
