Author: Lisa “Luna” DeCurtis, M.A., CCC-SLP Speech and language
deficits are often the first sign of autism. Some people with
autism never learn to speak, or speak only in rote phrases that
they have hear thousands of times. Understandably, this
inability to communicate causes panic and alarm, and parents are
anxious for speech therapists to teach their autistic child
words. But, speech and language begins well before words come
out. Before anyone can learn to speak, they must master non-
verbal communication and inferencing. In part 1, we used the
acronym HAWK to describe the need to listen to and identify
noises. In part 2, we are addressing the importance of body
language in inferencing and interpreting speech. Always, in
speaking a person’s body language and facial expression
contributes to what he is saying. For example: if you say “yes”
with your arms crossed and your eyes rolled, you are probably
angry, yes with a hand clap or smile and you are excited, yes
while looking at the ground and you might real