In my experience, they start talking in their first year....and well, something happens in the second year where they either regress or just plan stop for a time. At some point, we hear language again by school age. I believe they are still absorbing information and learning language but are not able to express it like other kids. My oldest, he had baby language the first year and then in the second year nothing. After he started speech therapy, about six months later, we started to hear it again. He was three year old at that time. It was limited speech. At age five years old, he just bloomed in language.
Now, his younger brother, who is only sixteen months younger, he is also on the spectrum. Our experience with him was very different. He had typical language in the first year and regressed the second year. The doctors have told us he is considered non-verbal. His language was scrip-tic or what the therapists taught him. By age seven years old, he was still not really talking in a functional every day kind a of way...it was still scrip-tic. We needed a way to talk to him, so we taught him how to simply say Yes or No to questions. Later, we would give him choices, like apples or bananas and he would answer one of those to indicate his needs, wants and/or preferences. He seem to be able to handle those one word answers. We continued to build on that strategy. Three years later, he is trying speech out with us. He will now say three word sentences on a regular basis. We went through a spell of requiring him to say " I want " before everything he was requesting. The school invited Junior Achievement to their classrooms last year and did a wonderful job in teaching the kids the difference between wants and needs. We were already discussing it somewhat at home too. So, I when the kids asked for something I would simply ask them first, is that a want or a need? In his case, if it was a need, then I would say what I needed him to say, which was: Ask Momma, "I need" in front of that sentence, so he would repeat the request with I need such and such instead. Now, we had two kind of sentences from him. =) He picked up on that real quick and it taught him also the differences between wants and needs. I think kids need to know that..... Every now and then, I will hear his attempts to speak and when he does, it comes out unclear. We have to be extremely patient, not correcting him when listening. It sounds like "scrambled eggs" like the grammar is off. It reminds me of the Spanish language exactly, but with English words. They would say in their language, "you I love" instead of the way we say it, "I love you" and that is just an example. Sometimes, I can filter what he is saying and other times I am not able too. I am just happy he is trying to express his thoughts because I know it is hard for him. When he is in this mode, I just let it happen and don't try to correct him because he gets all flustered. Every once in a blue moon, we do hear good speech from him like he is really connecting that day. It's interesting too, he will not use baby words but big words for his age group, like he is picking up language all these years in his learning despite his obvious delays in speech. It's not baby talk. I have had well meaning relatives say, "what do you mean that he does not talk? I hear him speak all the time". They don't understand the doctors definition of talking, that he is considered non-verbal.
My youngest one is at kinder garden age now. I have to say that his speech has not been unusual. He has followed the typical pattern of kids that talk, but he is just delayed for his age group. Just behind. The biggest difference between my youngest and my two oldest would be body language.
Body language is often something autistic kids don't really SEE . They aren't able to see the social implications or the unspoken that other kids do. They aren't reading body language and they aren't able to express their language through gesturing either. Often times, I had to state the obvious with them, which felt rather rude as a mother to do so. However, they just didn't see it. So, I had to point it out. I always tried to do so in a kind way because I really don't like myself when others assume you don't "know" something and point out of the obvious. Rather, my oldest, he would listen for your voice inflection to consider how you feel because he could not read nor understand my face expressions. I do think they "sense" when things are off, like their routines, but they typically would not be able to see the obvious emotional undertones that people do have. I noticed my youngest one does see the body language, so either he is an exception to most kids on the spectrum or his issues are different. He is still being tested at this time. Out of the three, he is the only one that seems to be able to see body language and when his language was limited he used lots of gesturing to make his needs known.
I am making some general statements here and can't speak for all autistic kids, but this is what I have generally observed.
