There is a show on TV called Oobi on the NickJr. channel. This show has been on for some time. I thought it was lame the first time I seen it a few years back. Watching it now I see why it is the way it is.
The characters are people's hands with a set of eyes on them. They speak in really reduced sentences for children to develop language skills. My autistic son actually sat and studied the characters. This show also has good moral teachings. That is a hard thing to find now days on cartoons and TV shows.
Cartoons today are either too educational and boring or violent. What ever happened to silly and funny cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Garfield? Even Sesame Street now is about eating veggies. Not that that is a bad thing, but where is the humor? Sesame Street used to have a bunch of segmented clips about numbers, letters, colors and other educational meanings. Now, it focuses on a topic, like bubbles, and has the whole show on that. Then comes Elmo's World. That doesn't teach much either.
Speech delay was a big factor in my son's autism. He didn't start speaking until the age of 4. When he started speaking, he was echolalic. He would copy things we would tell him to do. Now, he is starting to ask questions for himself instead of copying what we say. He still has a puzzled look on his face sometimes we tell him to do something.
I will say that Oobi is a really good tool of language providing and morals when you have a child who has a delayed speech. Speaking slow, short sentences is how to get the communication skills working.
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