Host: What strategies are recommended for children who are unable to talk? Peggy Halliday: Depending on their age, you would look at an appropriate communication system. Sign language works very well for young children, if they have the fine motor skills to actually form the sign. Picture exchange communication systems can work very well for many students because most children with autism are visual learners so, they respond well to pictures and pictures can be exchanged for items that the child wants in a way that s very functional. Sometimes we continue to push for language while we are working with sign language and with pictures and we find that by giving the child another functional communication system the language tends to come more easily instead of the opposite that some people might expect that if you are giving another system the language disappear, that doesn t turn out to be true.