Spontaneous Verbal Language for Autistic Children through Signed Speech

Signed speech refers to the simultaneous production of signs and speech. When autistic children are taught to sign and speak at the same time, i.e. to use signed speech, the spontaneity that manual language promotes transfers to speech. After the children have employed signed speech for many months, the signs can be faded out. The children employ the verbal language that remains in a creative and generative fashion–to make demands, describe the world, and to direct or comment on their own behavior. The three originally nonverbal autistic boys we instructed progressed from spontaneous sign language, to spontaneous signed speech, to spontaneous verbal language.