Communication is essential to being able to connect to others, express one's needs and wants and participate in effective learning. This essential life skill tends to develop in a delayed and deviating manner in autistic children. Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by difficulty in communicating with and relating to others. Autistic children need specialized instruction at school to enable them to learn academic concepts while tackling their communication challenges.

The signs of autism can be spotted as early on as at the age of 9-12 months. Infants with autism display a limited response to other people's attempts to communicate with them. As they grow up, they may show delayed acquisition of speech or may regress with regard to their previously acquired vocabulary.

Let us explore the signs of autism commonly seen in autistic children.

Signs of autism in children

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  In autistic children, communication is both delayed and deviates from the norm. Children with autism reach the developmental milestones associated with communication at a delayed pace than their peers. In some cases, they are unable to learn to use spoken language at all unless therapeutic interventions are made by an autism therapy center or autistic children school.
  

Also, the children may develop a form of communication that deviates from the norm, wherein they use gestures and sounds distinct from those used by their peers.

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  Preverbal vocalizations like cooing and babbling are used by infants to communicate their wants and needs. These sounds help a baby take part in back-and-forth circles of communication and also prepares the ground for the development of speech.
  

An infant with autism may not coo or babble or use any such preverbal vocalizations.

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  Another common aspect of communication is the use of gestures. Before a child develops speech, they may rely heavily on gestures such as pointing at an object to indicate that they want it. Children with autism do not, usually, use gestures as a means of communication.
  

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  Children with autism are less responsive to their name being called out or to other people's speech, in general.
  

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  Typically, children start speaking by the age of 12 months. Children with autism may start speaking by 24, 30 or 36 months.
  

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  About 20-25% children with autism show a phenomena of ‘regression' in which they start speaking by 12-18 months but exhibit a gradual loss of their acquired vocabulary between the ages of 18-24 months.
  

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  Children with autism show a limited ability to imitate other people's speech which is a skill essential to developing communication abilities.
  

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  There are two major kinds of intention that underlie a person's communication attempts; proto-imperative intentions and proto-declarative intentions.
  

Proto-imperative intentions back demands and requests whereas proto-declarative intentions underlie the attempt to share one's thoughts or an experience with others.

The communication of an autistic child is marked by a discernible dominance of proto-imperative intentions.

The delays and deviations witnessed in an autistic child's ability to communicate can be addressed suitably by autism schools. An autistic children school helps students reach crucial developmental milestones pertaining their ability to communicate. Autism schools may do this through a variety of means that gently instill the desire and requisite effort to communicate in an autistic child.