In this video, Dr. Mary Barbera discusses autism, particularly focusing on non-verbal or minimally verbal children. She shares her personal journey, starting when her son Lucas began showing signs of autism in the late 1990s. Despite initial resistance to the diagnosis, she embraced the autism world, eventually becoming a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and an advocate for early intervention and parent education.
Dr. Barbera emphasizes the importance of identifying “pop-out words”—spontaneous words or sounds children might say—and leveraging them to develop communication skills. She critiques the over-reliance on communication devices or systems like AAC and PECs if they aren’t effectively enhancing communication. Instead, she advocates for a structured approach using pairing techniques with simple tools like shoeboxes, puzzles, and toys like Potato Head to encourage vocalization and cooperative play.
She highlights the value of pairing words with activities, thereby making language a conditioned reinforcer. This helps in building a child’s motivation to engage and communicate without excessive prompting.
