Teaching autistic kids to talk can help

Teaching children with autism to ‘talk things through’ in their heads may help them solve tricky day-to-day tasks & cold increase the chances of them living independent lives when they grow up, British scientists have said. Psychologists who studied adults with autism found that the mechanism for using ‘inner speech’, or talking things through in your head is intact, but they don’t always use it in the same way as typically developing people do. The results suggest teaching autistic children how to develop inner speech skills may help them cope with daily tasks later in life. It also suggests children with autism may do better at school if they’re encouraged to learn their daily timetable verbally rather than using visual plans, which is currently a common approach. Among core features of autism are poor communication skills & difficulty with social

engagement.