My son did not talk until he was 5; he spoke around me and no one else until I put him in regular kndg. I believe being around other kids that did not speak delayed him. I also made him talk. If he would point, I did not give him what he wanted until he said what he wanted. I started out with 1 words sentences like water, then want water, to I want water.

I used "Your Baby can Read" with my kids and they are verbal. I read on a blog that other moms found improvment in their autistic childrens language with YBCR as well. I can't say for sure that my son would have been nonverbal without YBCR, I started them watching the videos at 6 mo. and he didn't really talk until two. Good Luck!

Different things seem to work for different kids. Don't worry about trying a bunch of different approaches. There is plenty on the web about bio-medical treatments, and the best approach to it seems to be to just give it a try. My best advice is to avoid anything that seems potentially dangerous, or even unnecessarily expensive. Some people have good luck omega 3's and other supplements, some other people have good luck with the gluten free diet.

We had the best luck with traditional ABA. We would hold his favorite food in front of him, and prompt him to say the word. If he said the word, he received it immediately. Even if he didn't he still got the food, but it was delayed for a few seconds, and it was smaller bites. There is more to it than that, of course, but most of it is common sense.

Within a few short weeks of repeated trials, we started getting a few first sounds. Within a few more weeks, they were recognizable words.

There are a lot of sources for ABA techniques on the web, but here are the parts that seemed to be the most effective for us:

1. We had a therapist design the plan for us, and we worked on it many times each day. Rarely for more than a few minutes at a time, but many, many times each day.

2. Each task was broken down into very small parts. At first, he was getting rewards just for making sounds. Once he learned that he could control the amount of the reward, he was motivated to try harder.

3. We used only positive reinforcement, and lots of it. If he started a negative behavior, we just pretended to ignore it.

Speech therapy is definitely important, but the gains we've gotten from that have been of the "slow and steady" sort. By contrast, we've seen big jumps in speech (esp. spontaneous speech) within days of adding certain nutritional supplements. Specifically, they were Behavior Balance DMG, acetyl-l-carnitine, and Coenzyme Q10. Some people see a big improvement in speech with the methyl B12 injections, but unfortunately we've only seen a mild acceleration in the rate of improvement. Our biomed dr. is planning to try n-acetyl-cysteine but first he has to finish treating DD for yeast, since NAC can exacerbate yeast.

I used Baby Bumble Bee videos before my son was in any programs and he loved them, he may not have had clear language but he tried. Once i saw that he loved them and was trying I bought the set. . Before u purchase them u can find them in ur library and see if they help. It is geared for children with language development issues. They offer free flash cards on the web site. To go with the videos. Cant hurt to try it.