From Nonverbal to Talking Against All Odds
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Why do many families believe their child will never speak?
So many of the families that come to me have been told repeatedly their child will never talk or they're shocked by the diagnosis. Within six months their child started talking and what they really pointed out is in order to follow my recommendations they had to leave their ego behind and trust that my recommendations would bring them the progress that they thought was impossible.
Elissa Mendel is a certified speech language pathologist, autism specialist, and founder of Speech Works by Elissa. She has over 30 years of experience helping nonverbal autistic children build communication and independence through parent-led strategies.
I want to give a child the life that I was able to achieve. I want them to be able to talk and live independently without struggles.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode.
Sat here today with Alyssa and she is on a mission to totally change, help and disrupt an industry. Super amazing work she's got going on, changing thousands of lives. I'm so excited to dive into today's episode. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. So I know you're so, you know, focused and passionate about changing lives through the speech work you're doing and the business you've built to help people. If people don't know what that is, let's start there. Tell us a little about yourself and the business and how you help people. Sure. I'm Elissa Armandel, and I am a speech-language pathologist and an expert in autism. I am also the creator of SpeechWorks by Elissa, where I've sought out the most progressive techniques in the world, not just for my clients, but for myself.
I'm late diagnosed, and I guide parents of nonverbal autism. autistic children and speech late children how to teach their child and guide their child through developmental milestones in order to learn how to talk and live independently. And it's so, you know, I think it's like so important because there's, you know, the general help out there, there's not enough information, not enough support, not enough help. So you're trying to bridge that gap and give them the tools and the knowledge they need to optimize their life and the child's life and upbringing, right? Why is it that this was even needed? Why is there a lack of support out there? Exactly. So many of the families that come to me have been told repeatedly their child will never talk or they're shocked by the diagnosis and they have to go through a grieving process and get hope for their child.
And there are no services out there. It's very limited. It's hard for a parent to find those resources. And I guide those parents so that they don't lose time. Once they get a diagnosis, they need to follow a different path, a different journey than they thought they would have to follow and follow. Finding the resources and the professionals that they can trust to give them information and give their child a good life is very, very challenging for them. And so I help them to do that as well as teach them skills. And what are, just as an example for everyone listening, what are a few of the things you're really helping do and help provide and train them on? Well, for speech, I specialize in motor planning and auditory processing.
And so anything that has to do with a muscle, you have so many muscle groups that coordinate for speech. You have muscles for speech breathing. You have the vocal cords. You have the lip, jaw, and tongue, and they all need to coordinate. Typical kids learn how to coordinate their muscles through auditory feedback.
What role do parents play in their child's communication progress?
For kids on the spectrum, they have different learning styles. So they need visual prompts, tactile prompts, physical prompts to learn how to move those muscles. So I just don't target those muscles. I target bigger movements like gross and fine motor, which we need to tie our shoes, zip, brush our teeth, anything that is possibly needed.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why do many families believe their child will never speak?
0:00–4:33
2
What role do parents play in their child's communication progress?
4:33–9:03
3
How did Elissa's personal experience shape her mission?
9:03–13:32
4
What are the challenges parents face in finding support for their child?
13:32–17:48
5
How do motor planning and auditory processing affect communication?
17:48–19:14