A Non-Verbal 3-Year-Old with Great Receptive Language

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I have a child who is 3 in my preschool. She says nothing at all expressively, but receptive…my she is fine and following a 3 keyword level instruction.
Any ideas how to start her talking or what I should do ?

My Thoughts:

1. Get started with some AAC, ASAP

2. Work on imitation skills.  Make it fun and offer LOTS of encouragement and praise.  Figure out where she is in this continuum:

  • Imitating whole body movements
  • Imitating smaller movements
  • Imitating movements near/with mouth
  • Imitating sound effects with movements
  • Imitating sound effects without movements
  • Imitating speech sounds in isolation
  • Imitating single words

3. Work on getting her up to the next level of imitation as quickly as you can.

4. Train caregivers and teachers to encourage any vocalizations she makes and interpret them as real speech.  Give lots of feedback about what she’s doing with her mouth so she understands.