Speech delay question

MellsBells7

My son was dx with asd around his second birthday. Since then he's been in ST 2 hours/week, OT 1 hour a week, and ABA 8 hours/ week. When he started he had 2 words, mama & dada. He now, 9 months later has about 20, but only 5 he will say w/o prompting, (mama, dada, baby, ball, bubbles). We removed all his noise maker toys and replaced them with toys that we can use to help him talk.
It's not just the speaking. He also dosnt shake his head yes or no. For example we take him to the park very often so he knows what a park and play ground is, however if I ask him if he wants to go to the play ground,he just looks at me. He will pick between two choices, such as if I ask him if he wants grapes or apple, he will point to one. I should also mention that he understands what I'm saying and will follow simple commands.
Just wondering what worked for others, and how long did it take? It seams as if his therapist don't want to answer because they don't want to give me false hope or they don't know. I feel helpless because I don't know if I should be doing more or what to do.

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typeset

I can speak to gestures. 

We had to teach the kid (also Dx'd at two) 1) the concept of yes and 2) how to nod and shake his head no through ABA. The "yes" program involved offering him a non-preferred item and asking "do you want this?" to get him to associate it with no and then offering a highly preferred item and modeling the affirmative. Check with your BCBA. 

His early nod involved his entire upper body. It's much more natural now, but using and recognizing all other gestures have had to be taught the same way. He only recognized four out of forty at the beginning of the year and now will happily slap your palms if you upturn them and shrug in confusion. He has never, ever blown a kiss. It's a work in progress. 

abs05

My daughter has resolved apraxia and overall motor planning issues. I had forgotten this, but we had to teach her how to nod.    She knew what yes and no meant but would shake her head for both.  Yeah, that wasn't confusing at all.  To teach her I would just place my hands on her head and help her nod when she meant yes.  She got it pretty quickly.

kcisthebombdotcom

Right around three ended up being a big turning point for language around here. Dd has a pretty big vocabulary and answers questions well--her big struggle currently is putting words together to form sentences. She won't even use echolalia around this skill. She's still mostly at the two word level with an occasional 3-4 word combination.

mommy0411

My son also had to be taught how to say yes and no. He still hasn't gotten nonverbal gestures like nodding. In fact our BCBA programed his "yes/no" program almost exactly as @typeset described we just haven't gotten to the nonverbal responses yet. I feel like ABA has been instrumental in teaching DS1 how to use these responses. (DS was diagnosed with ASD at 21 months)

mightmom13

When DD first started her speech therapy, we were the one word/same word beginners - then she took off with the vocab because she will repeat any and every word she is asked; then came the hyperlexia and issues with homonyms and synonyms. 

When we began speech, her therapist was completely on board with her not having any receptive issues, but now she is appearing to develop them. We do Signing Time so I do a lot with her on signs with words/concepts as well as a lot of modeling - that show also shows a lot of modeling and is the only screen time she will really watch, watch. 

So I agree with modeling and her therapists may not have an answer concretely - our goals can go from changing every week to keep doing this/that every week.