Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Raise in Autism Rates and Non-verbal Rates will Impact AT and SLP Services



In my work, I have been seeing an increase in Autism occurances - as has been reported in many studies, like this one from CDC, but I have also seen more incidences of non-verbal children in our schools. I am collabiorating more and more with our SLP's and EI/ECSE Specialists to develop AT supports and strategies. This past fall has been the busiest so far.
I was interested to see a link to an article about a poll by YouGov in the UK, that showed children are reaching the age of 3 without being able to say a word. It also showed that "boys are almost twice as likely to struggle to learn to speak than girls".
The survey results were released by I CAN, a children's communication charity.
On their news release, they provide links to download the survey results. The collection was done between December 15 and 18 of 2009 and 1015 parents of children 1 to 7 responded.
You can also get more info at http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/
Also, the CDC report at the beginning of this post was featured in The Age of Autism, a daily newpaper on the Autism epidemic. Therre are some great articles and features to keep up on posted there.
What do you see as the impact this data has on assistive technology services and speech services to early intervention and early childhood populations?

All the best to you,

Lon

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