Why can’t autistic children speak or speak slowly?

How is our child’s brain different from that of a normal child?

Doctor, my child can’t speak at all. I want him to be able to speak and speak in sentences that make sense. Can TMS stimulation help?

It can help, but you need to understand the brain development of “normal children” first. What do they go through before they can speak? Because if you don’t understand this, you won’t understand autism or speech delay. Doctor will now talk about the brain cell level, which is the root cause.

How normal children learn to speak the word “ham”

1. The child looks at the mother’s mouth and sees how it moves to say “mham” The visual information is sent to the occipital lobe in the brain.
2. At the same time, the child hears the sound “mham” and the auditory information is sent to the temporal lobe in the brain.
3. The two brain regions work together to create a memory of the word “mham”.
4. The child needs to be paying attention and motivated to learn the word.
5. The premotor cortex in the brain plans how to move the mouth, tongue, and jaw to say “mham”. The cerebellum and brainstem help to coordinate the movement and breathing.
6. The child says “mham” and hears their own voice. The brain checks to see if the sound is correct. If the sound is not correct, the mother repeats the word and the child tries again.
7. When the child says the word correctly, the mother smiles, claps, or hugs them. This activates the reward circuit in the brain and makes the child want to say “mham” again.
8. When the child is hungry, they cry to ask for milk or food. When they say “mham” correctly, they are given food. This reinforces the connection between the word “mham” and food.
9. The child learns that when they are hungry, they need to say “ham” to get food. This is an example of meaningful communication.
10. Eating food stimulates the digestive system and helps the child to have regular bowel movements.

In order to speak one syllable in a meaningful way, a child needs to have at least 10 well-functioning neural systems. This requires the use of at least one million brain cells and at least 10 million connections between these cells. These connections, known as connectivity, can be divided into two types: short-range (intra-hemisphere) and long-range (inter-hemisphere).

The pyramid below shows that in order for a child to speak, they must first have developed the 10 other areas listed above. Please take a slow look at the pyramid.

Each autistic child has different problems. Some have more hearing problems, some have more pronunciation problems, and some have comprehension problems. But to put it simply, here is a brief summary:

1. Autistic children’s vision may not be the same as normal children. Many children see blurry images, see only specific points, and do not look at the eyes. This makes them misinterpret lip movements. Some people cannot focus on their mother’s mouth and will see everything around them. They are easily distracted.
2. Their hearing may also be higher or lower than normal, or it may be echoing. Many autistic people cannot filter out noise. They will hear the mother’s voice, the fan, the bell, the TV, and the air conditioner all at the same time. It’s like they’re hearing a storm. So the correct sound of “mham” may be distorted.
3. The pathways between the brain parts are both few and slow. This is called underconnectivity, and these pathways are damaged throughout the brain, in no less than 15 pathways and many millions of connections. When the pathways between the brain (interhemispheric connectivity) work slowly and poorly, that part of the brain will increase its internal work (intra-hemisphere connectivity). Children will become more obsessed with stimuli, such as liking to watch fans spinning, playing with car wheels, and listening to the same toys.
4. From the above problems, children have no concentration. Because both images and sounds are disturbed, imagine a storm coming in and we are talking to another person in the middle of the storm.
5. The frontal lobe will try to plan the movement of the mouth, tongue, or jaw. But it’s all distorted because the vision, hearing, and coordination are not correct in the first place.
6. Children will often pronounce words incorrectly. The mother will speak again and try to get the child to follow, but the images and sounds that the child receives are not good from the beginning. The more the child is forced to speak, the more the child will be annoyed, uncomfortable, and upset. Especially in some people, the Broca’s speech area works less, making them want to speak but cannot. The more uncomfortable and annoyed they are, the more they scream.
7. In autistic children, we found that the reward circuit is both smaller and works less than half as much as normal children. When autistic children speak correctly, they may not feel good, happy, or responsive. Because they cannot read the mother’s happy face or smile, there is no incentive to speak correctly as much as normal children.
8. When autistic children drink milk or eat food, the taste buds on their tongue are not normal. This makes them eat a limited diet, eating only the things they like. The more they eat what they like, the more they eat it repeatedly, leading to malnutrition and fiber deficiency. This makes constipation even worse, as the autonomic nervous system is not very good to begin with.
9. And all the problems are a vicious cycle that repeats itself over and over again. The longer it is left untreated, the worse the behavior will become. The older they get, the harder it is to fix.

This is just speaking one syllable, and it takes so much preparation. Speaking in sentences, with meaning, and in line with events is even more complex. It uses no less than a hundred million brain connections. How much of a problem will it be?