“When my friends go up to someone and talk, I don’t understand how words just come out of their mouth. I wish I could do that. How do they do that?

It’s not uncommon for an Autistic child’s thinking to be profound or ahead of their peers. It is common for them to have significant difficulty with speech and / or language skills needed to verbalize their incredible thoughts.

Speech inability has no relationship to intellectual ability. Challenges with expressive language has no relationship to not having anything to say. Communicating non-verbally has equal worth as speech.

Encourage. Support. Be as genuine in your efforts to hear them, as they are in their efforts to share with you.