Mine says "no no no" and "wow", but in order to communicate, she'll reach out towards something with her whole hand, and if we don't get it on the first try, she screams and hits and will yell "no no no" and go into a full tantrum.

Thank you @A MyAutismTeam Member! This is so encouraging!

I still sorta struggle with this..... I'm choose to believe if a child at least begins to say a few words by the time they're, say, 2.5.... they're "pre-verbal", as opposed to "non-verbal". I want to believe "non-verbal" would describe a child that has no speech at all and isn't showing any signs for the possibility of speech at some point in their lives. I may be wrong, or just hopeful, but my lil guy is 4 and up to about 10 to 12 words. I consider him "pre-verbal", not "non-verbal". He does have speech, even if it is limited. I do want to point out though, his doctors, therapists or teachers never use the term "pre-verbal".

My daughter is nonverbal and is 10, she has a vocabulary of about 15 words but they are not all clear. She uses about 5-6 normally to get what she needs. She uses this with a combination of sign language and PECS through a speech tablet otherwise. For us at home she doesn't really like to use the tablet and uses the words and sign language. The tablet is more used at school.

There is a difference between speech delay and being actually nonverbal. This is a grey area but if the child is above about five years old and still has no ability to speak then they are generally really nonverbal however evaluators and doctors may classify a child is nonverbal much younger. In regards to the autism diagnosis there is no particular deportation for being nonverbal. You rather have autism or don't when it comes to the newer classification.

Sorry if that doesn't help a lot, but as I said this is a grey area from a legal and diagnostic sense.

@A MyAutismTeam Member sharing your experience does help...

Mentioned Users

A MyAutis...