Nonverbal Communication In Children

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Nonverbal communication is the way that many people are able to communicate without using words. For children with autism, communication can be very difficult verbally as well as nonverbally. Children with autism have social-interaction difficulties as well as communication challenges and have a tendency to engage in repetitive behaviors. (source) These communication challenges (examples) can make it difficult for the parents of children with autism to know how their child may be feeling at certain times. Thus, this paper is intended to explain how nonverbal cues are important for parents of children with autism and people that may interact with children with autism. In the popular press article from The Huffington Post, the author (name …show more content…
She was able to notice something about her child because she took the time to take a break and sit down with her daughter and think more about what her daughter was doing. Lebowitz (2016) gave tips for communication breakthroughs with your children. The tips were as simple as “ Find simple ways to connect with your child and enjoy their company, before attempting to calm and connect with your child, focus on calming yourself first, let your child know that they are accepted and that you believe in them, help your child feel safe and comfortable around you, and trust your intuition” (Lebowitz, 2016). The main point that Lebowitz (2016) states is how it is so important that you are calm when you approach your child so you can decipher their communication clues with clarity. “Your high-strung nerves can melt away into compassion, bringing a sense of peace to both you and your child” (Lebowitz, 2016). What I found most interesting about this article was that the mother noticed the way the child was displaying excitement by looking her mother in the eyes. She also communicated to her mother that she wanted to play in the water by repeatedly playing a video or song about playing in the …show more content…
We read and understand that with the advancement in technology it has given a little bit of an advantage for children to display their emotions when they can not verbally do so. I will relate back to the story of the young girl, because she was not able to verbally tell her mother she wanted to play by the pool, she used a video. She was not able to even use the hand gestures to go out and point to the pool to think that her mother would understand what she wanted to do. I believe that both articles correctly depicted the challenges with verbal communication among children with autism. The challenge is that even with nonverbal communication, you have to closely pay attention to pick up on the social cues that may explain how the children are feeling. Overall, the popular press article was heavily supported by the research. Nonverbal and verbal cues are very hard to pick up on when your child has autism. Both articles experimented and saw that there was no change when an experiment was done with a child that has autism. They were not able to alter their cues through any of the experiments. Therefore, we see that it is very important to be patient with children with autism because when they express themselves through nonverbal communication and you have to take the time to decipher what they really want or

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