Speech therapy, signing, and PECS are all helpful. The biggest gains we've seen in speech, however, have come within days of adding certain nutritional supplements. Behavior Balance DMG, acetyl-l-carnitine, and Coenzyme Q10 are all available relatively inexpensively and OTC. Methyl B12 injections are more expensive and require a doctor's prescription but we've seen an acceleration in improvement since starting those. Many people report gains with Omega 3's but we didn't see any change after dramatically increasing the dosage. Ditto with probiotics.

Hi JennyT, my advice is PECS,speech therapy,and behavioral therapy helps too because a specialist can come to your house to provide more speech instruction. Remember to place the PECS everywhere around your house labeling what everything is, good luck. Fyi, my son stopped speaking at the age of 18 mos, he started up again at the age of 5 and has been speaking ever since.(14yrs. now)

The best thing for speech aside from verbal behaviour and just engaging our son in play was methyl B12 shots. It was an immediate difference for us. Our son would go from 2-3 word sentences and infrequently speaking to 3-5 word sentences and trying to talk up a storm after the shot but effect would fade after within two days. So we do shots every other day. This was around the age of three and a year later (with MB12 shots), our son can talk in sentences and have a conversation. There are at least three published studies on MB12 with the most recent one published a few months ago. I would also recommend a high quality B-vitamin since kids in general don't need much veggies. These are critical for many functions especially thiamine for speech.

@A MyAutismTeam Member, I have been looking online for the supplements you mentioned. I think I have found them all but I was curious as to the dosage? Do you give your child just the single serving size of each daily? I have found liquid form of the DMG and the Acetyl L Carnitine. I found chewables of the coq10. My son will not swallow pills of course and any liquid I will have to put in juice or almond milk for him. I have the mb12 lollypops coming so I want to phase all this in gradually so I can see what seems to work. Do you recommend a website or brand where you get yours?

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A MyAutis...

Thank you for recommending the mb12. I have been researching it and seen nothing but good things. I have ordered the lollypops and lozenges. I will get with the doctor after the holidays about the shots. I really need to find a better doctor I think that specializes in this type of issue. we were told he was on the spectrum (obviously) by the doctor at Children's Hospital in Birmingham but I don't really care for their autism clinic. They are not very helpful. I am going to be looking for another doctor.