TIP: 4 Ways to Chit Chat

When you see a special needs family in public, talk to the child, not the parent.

 The parent will jump in when needed. It's ok to say hello, ask her name, or just a

 kind "I love your shirt" and a warm smile.

4 levels of communication you might encounter and a few suggestions:

1) Say What?
Much like people with strong accents, some kids have speech and communication skills but may be hard to understand. It's ok to ask them what they said. Be patient with them and they will be patient with you. :)

2) If this then that...
Others may have been conditioned to have certain conversations. This means that
even if they don't seem to understand, they have been taught to have "if this then 
that" type of conversation - so when you say *Hi, how are you* They know to say *good how are you*. Reach out regardless of what your first impression makes you think. You just might be surprised!
  
3) Thumbs up!
Others have no speech at all but communicate with body language or hand signals. Again, be patient and think about the context of the conversation. I have a young friend who uses a thumbs up for anything positive (yes, please, nice, happy, yummy...) and squints her eyes shut for anything negative (no, stop, sad, icky...) So if I asked how her day was and she squinted I could ask a few questions to guess why it was a bad day - something like "are you hot?" One time our guessing game went on for a while and she finally gave me a thumbs up... I paused and asked if she was just saying that to shut me up... sure enough; up went that thumb again! We had a good laugh! :)

4) Cool Gadget!
Some use a speech device. A small board with pictures or words they can press and a voice talks for them. This is super cool and Stacey had one for a long time at school. When someone is using a device to talk with you, as cool as it is, please don't only talk about the gadget... make sure you are appreciating the conversation and focus on the person. And when they are using the board, wait quietly while they work it. If you keep talking sometimes everyone forgets what it was they were responding to in the first place!