How do you know the sound of your voice?

Have you ever had a fear to speak on a microphone, because you don't recognize the sound of your own voice as its amplified for all to hear? 

Do you what your voice sounds like if you were to hear it played back to you without any cues that its your voice?

Probably so, because we take our voices for granted every day listening to everything we speak.

But can  you imagine not having a voice.  You may have sensitivities to noises and distinguishing a voice of your own because you have a hard time processing all sounds that you hear.  How do you know the sound of your own voice if you don't have a voice of your own?



Everyone has desires and needs, but not all children have developed a voice to express those needs.  Infants cry and hear the sound of a form of their voice because after they cry, they have their needs met thus creating communication.  Early communication is mostly imitation from other people's voices until they develop their own voice, but what happens when communication is delayed and their voice is lost inside.  When children with autism do not develop their voice, they have a hard time communicating their needs and we tend to see the visibly negative symptom of autism, which can include hitting, screaming, pinching, kicking, shaking, and these fits are a way for their nervous system to work out their unmet desire.  The behaviors are a consequence of the disability,like a wheelchair is the consequence of having a mobility disability so just because a child with autism may have negative behaviors, they are not the screaming because they have autism.  However, you'd probably be screaming too if you didn't have any other voice to express your needs.  Autism is a communication disability. 

At the beginning of each year, the main goal for all my classes is to show each child what their voice sounds like.  However, the journey to find the voice starts with lots of therapy and understanding the the child acts the way they do because of a communication handicap not a behavior problem.  There are ways to avoid meltdowns, coping during the turmoil of a meltdown, and teachable experiences within each time the child is acting out.  They do not continue to receive positive attention for their negative behavior.  So as long as the environment is safe, the child is under control and not causing physical harm to another child, all negative behaviors are ignored and not tolerated.  There are conseqeunces and lessons to be learned for the child acting out, however it must also be rememebered that you are in control not the child, so negative behavior will not be rewarded with attention.  Attention includes but is not limited to eye contact, vocal connections,  removal from group, and put in quiet spot for safety reasons if untolerable behavior begins. 

However, the goal is to reduce occurances of meltdowns through the development of their voice, starting with picture symbols and full physical prompting but fading away slowly until you get to hear what their voice really sounds like. 

The magical time of day spoken of in a previous blog, How to Feel your Best, is also about speech development.  During that magical time of day we work on basic sounds  of our voice that we use when we wake up in the morning.  We sing songs that concentrate   our syllble sound like m, w, r, p, b, or chuncks like brush your teeth to make the chchchch  are just a few examples of vocal development during oral motor.  We look in the mirror and practice mouthing movements to add vowels sounds to those syllables for moo or waa.  We use tools that the speech therapist has made to repetition to help show the child who doesn't know their own voice yet, recognize that they too have something to say