3 Speech Delay Myths Parents Should Know

Three myths that parents are getting from everyone, basically. Therapists, teachers, you know, other parents that are myths. Advice that I miss and I want to, you know, just bust them right now. The first one is bilingualism. Bilingualism doesn't cause speech delay or doesn't confuse a child. A lot of people will argue with that. And the last video that we talked about bilingualism, we had some comments in the comment section talking about, oh, it doesn't make sense that, you know, like, if a child takes longer to, like, even for us, it takes longer for us to learn two languages. Why can't I just like, delete one of them and only focus on one language so I don't confuse my kid, right? And I work in a place, I grew up in a bilingual environment. That's why I, I'm speaking English. And most of you guys watching, maybe the country you're in do not speak English primarily, right? So it's speaking to everyone that monolingualism is something that is slowly disappearing, okay? Like it or not, the world's going to become a place that's more multilingual. And the comment section again was saying how, oh yeah, just because the world is becoming like that doesn't mean we have to teach our kid like that. We want our, our child to catch up asap. Of course I'm going to take the One language will actually make the child acquire language or create any type of speech and language disorders or delays, so to speak. And the reason why is because language is a tool, right? But the whole language system, the acquisition of language is a whole different thing. Okay? So if someone has a problem with acquiring a language, it doesn't matter what language it is. Let me give you an analogy, right? So if a computer doesn't have software installed to decode certain languages, right? It doesn't matter how many languages you throw at it. If you're only throwing one language, it's not going to be able to decode it effectively, right? So maybe my analogy is not that good because I'm not a software engineer, but I'm, I'm telling you it doesn't matter. You have to fix the root problem, which is the, the language acquisition, right? The language development is hinged on how well the child is able to acquire language, okay? And the comment section yet again is going to say, hey, Ming, look, if a child will have to learn a word two times, right? For if they speak more than one language, or maybe three times if there are like three language in the is in the environment. But how about this? We have more than one chance to learn one word. Okay? There are some words that you may know in one language and you don't know in the other, and you use the other language to supplement it. Right? Happens to me a lot. Happens to me. Happens to a lot of children that I speak to and I teach. And most of the children that I used to teach were all bilingual, Trilingual, Right. I grew up in Hong Kong, Right. A lot of children in Hong Kong are bilingual or even trilingual now because of Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese and English, Right. When I was working in Indonesia, it's always Indonesian, Chinese and English. Right? And it's not. It's just unnatural for. For you as the parent to try to speak in one language in English, especially because a lot of children, they watch videos in English, right? When I go to church in Indonesia, most children there, they speak English. They don't even speak Chinese or Indonesian. Right? And the reason is because a lot of them, they like to watch videos in English and their teachers speak English, right. It's becoming more and more of a thing. But if you speak English and that's not the language that you're comfortable with speaking with your kid, what's going to happen is that you're not able to communicate nicely or effectively with your kid. So don't mind about the bilingualism, okay? What you're trying to teach is the language acquisition, the link between the sounds to the meaning, all right? Whereas when people are saying, oh, bilingualism is confusing the kid, that's we're talking about something after the acquisition, okay? It doesn't matter. Okay? It really doesn't matter if there are more than one word that a child needs to learn for one meaning, if they can't even create one link between the meaning and the word. Okay? So hopefully you understand what I mean. So let me give you a last example, and maybe you can watch the video that we did on bilingualism, right? So you see that children, when they are delayed, they like to pull your hand, Right. Or they like to go throw a tantrum or use other ways to get what they want. Right. Why do they not learn how to use sign language or gestures? That in itself is a language as well. Yeah. So why do we use gestures on top of speaking when we talk? Right. Why do we use it as a therapeutical tool and a cue and a prompt, Right. Why? It's because we're giving more information at an easier way instead of talking to create the same meaning. All right? Let's say if I say eat like that And I say in different languages, right? In Cantonese and I mean, like makan, Indonesian, manje, in French, whatever. So, like, if I do this and I say the words, it's giving more chance for the child to acquire that language. Okay, so please don't think that bilingualism is creating a problem. It's not. Most of all, sometimes it even solves problems and creates, like, children with better linguistic skills. Okay, so the second myth is that from 2 to 6 years of age is the golden period for intervention, for treatment, for speech and language therapy, for, you know, occupational therapy, for ABA training, whatever. That is a myth. Why? Because, look, I'm going to tell you now. Obviously, it makes sense to do early intervention as early as possible, but there's no such thing as a golden period. Okay? First of all, there's no research, you know, pointing towards that, oh, after 6, it's going to be really hard to do treatment. That's not the point. The reason why people are saying two to six is a golden period for intervention is to push parents to do early intervention. Okay, why is it that it's called the golden period or why do we want early intervention? Is because as you teach a child something, right, it's like a stack of dominoes, right? If you don't do it now, it keeps on falling and it's harder to treat later on because the problems get this big. Right? I was talking to a parent yesterday. She was telling me about this. Oh, no, my kid's like five. The pediatrician said it's over the golden period for therapy. My kid only speaks one word at a time. And I said, hey, if you think that way, then it's going to limit your belief and it's going to make you feel like whatever you do is not going to work. The child's going to feel it. So don't think that way. There's more than enough time for you to catch up. Okay? So I told her this example. Okay? So if we're dealing with younger child, it's easier to teach something because text, the habits hasn't been formed yet. Okay, let's say a child is 6 or 7 or 8, and they're so used to rejecting you, pushing you away, pulling your hand, not using words, not using long sentences, whatever. And I don't see a point. That habit is so strong, they don't even care anymore. Right. They don't even want to try. Right. And don't take me wrong. I don't say. I'm not saying kids don't care. Sometimes people in the comment Section will say, oh, Ming, you can't see, children don't care. They care a lot. Yeah. They only care about the things they want to care about and not the things we want to push on them. For instance, academics like storytelling, using language, whatnot. Right. So younger children are easier to teach when they're younger just because the habits aren't as well established as before. Right. And older children are easier to teach. See, there's another, there's always pros and cons. Right. Older children are easier to teach because they're able to understand the task a lot better. Because they're more mature, they have better cognitive skills. Right. Their language skills, although lower than typical developing children, they still understand better in terms of receptive language. So when you tell them what you want them to do, it's easier for them to comprehend. Right. It's just that the trade off between their habits and the reward that they're getting out of and whether they understand this is going to help with their lives or not is going to have like it's a battle. Okay, so let's talk about younger children. It's easier to form habits, but it's harder to teach them something. Right. It's harder than to let them understand what the task is about. Right. If you tried to get a child to teach a child some oral motor or some speech sounds, they won't really get it. They don't understand why they're supposed to do that. Or if you're teaching like a very, a board game, let's say, to a three year old, that's why we have like different age limits for different toys. It's because they haven't gotten to the point where they understand that type of games yet. And therefore, you know, like younger children, they also don't have a lot of language functions. They're always thinking about what am I going to get out of this? Right. What rewards can I get? How is it fun? Why do I have to play with you? Right. So it's, the needs are a lot easier and that's why it's easier to treat. But at the same time it's very hard to make them understand like higher language functions or like it's harder for therapists, teachers and parents to teach something that is slightly more advanced. Right. That's why it's hard. Okay, so younger children doesn't mean it's easier. The fight is different. Whereas older children, it's much easier to explain how attached to them. Right. Oh, you're supposed to do 10 and then I'll give You a break. Right. But at the same time, the problem is that their habits are so well developed, and you also have to, like, let them know emotionally why they're supposed to do it, why they're supposed to break out of this whole situation. So a good example is one of the parents who got a consultation with me told me that the daughter was on the spectrum. She was around 11. She cannot speak, but she can type on WhatsApp. And when her mom typed on WhatsApp, why do you don't talk to me? And why do you only type to me? Right. And then she says, I don't see a point. I can get my message across. Right. And it's very hard for her to want to start communicating with words, because it's hard. She's got a speech sound disorder. It's even difficult for her to imitate certain sounds. So she's like, ah, I don't. I don't want it. Right. So your task then I told the parent, is to let her know why speaking is actually a more effective way than typing. Right. Let her know why. Explain to her all these things. Right. And, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that after a certain age is going to be harder. It's just that people who are older are typically harder to convince. Right. And that's why as a parent, as a therapist, as a teacher, you should always be thinking about, how do I convince this person to do what I want, whether as a kid or a teenager. Right. Or an adult. Okay? So the whole golden period thing for intervention is not really true. It's only true if you're thinking about, oh, if I don't do this now, they can't catch up in academics. Right. But there are loads of examples whether you search online or not. Like, even for me, I can just say from my personal experience that I've seen at least like, five people who only started to speak at six. And now they have caught up already, but caught up, quote unquote. Right. Obviously, they will still have problems and difficulties with, with academics. Right. Because they learned how to read a lot later. Right. But this is for another, for another video, whether, you know, like, children would catch up or whatever. Okay, so that's myth number two. All right. Myth number three is no eye contact means it's autism. I get this a lot. If you just scroll through down in the YouTube comment section on Facebook groups or whatever, their parents are always saying, oh, my, My kid never looks at me. They never. There's no joint attention or whatever. I gaze Whatever the word is. Parents are always scared about this. So let me just tell you now, the answer is no, it doesn't mean it's autism. Okay? And we have videos about that. If you search inside of our channel, Agents of speech, you will see some of the eye contact stuff. But the gist of it is eye contact. Yes, it's. It is a red flag for autism. Yes, it is. But it doesn't mean that, you know, it correlates with autism. Doesn't mean it's a cause effect, right? You having a cough doesn't mean you have some. You have Covid, right? Let's talk about COVID It could be anything, right? So you must understand that eye contact comes with what we call like pragmatics, language use, so to speak. So what is that? So primarily we have like a few functions for eye contact or eye gaze or joint attention or whatever you like. So where the eye goes where they look, Right. They only look at our eyes because it's a non verbal communication that children or human beings understand that I'm trying to get your attention. So if your child doesn't want your attention, why would they look at you? Right? That's the first thing. Do you have something or are you a person of interest that the child wants your attention? If not, then why would they look? Right? And I do not like it when parents are scared of my child. It doesn't look. It might be autism. Let me solve it. By pushing their heads like this and look at me, look at me like that. That doesn't solve it. That only cures the symptoms, right? You understand what I mean? Like if you have, let's say covet again and you have cough and you eat something, you ingest honey or whatever to stop the coughing, that doesn't mean you get rid of the COVID No. Right. So you have to be very, very careful about that. Okay? The second reason for eye contact is that there's something, there's some information from my face, from my, from me that the person wants from me. Okay? And a lot of times that means speaking, right? If, you know, if a child is delayed, they don't know how to say something, they're looking for cues, right? They're looking for cues. And if your child doesn't even want to talk to you or even want to create like a certain speech sound or use language, why would they look? Yeah. And this is like only for eye contact. What about eye gaze or joint attention? Right. Looking at the things together. Right? So let me ask you this. Does your Child look intensely when you turn on the iPad. Yes. Right. So it's not that they don't have joint attention, it's just that they. They don't know whether this thing is important or not, right? To them. And if they don't understand whether something is important or not, then it's not the problem with the joint attention, right? It's the problem that they cannot differentiate what is socially important or not. Okay, so if I haven't lost you already, let me go on to my next point. Sometimes parents will go clap or like say, hey, to get a child's attention, right? So this becomes contingent, right? If you do this all the time, it becomes contingent. Now they look at you only when you give an external cue, right? Like a pet. And why is that bad? This is what we call artificial. Artificial attention. Why this is bad is because if the attention is according to the prompt, then you will only get the attention when you provide the prompt, which is not good, right? So you are not. If you're doing this, you're not solving the problem, right? The problem is that the child doesn't understand why you are interesting. Why shouldn't. Why he or she should look, right? That's first. Second of all is, you know, if. If they haven't understood that speaking or using speech is something important and getting it correct is. Is very important, then why would the child look? Right? And if they cannot differentiate between what's important, like you're rolling a car or whatever, and they're supposed to look, but they don't find the car rolling fun or interesting, why would they look? Right? So maybe the first thing you should do is to solve the play skill issues so that they find it interesting and therefore they will look, right? Or secondly, you must become someone interesting and then they will start looking, right? So a lot of the parents that I teach online, when they started the child, they will never look, right? And I tell them, just don't care about it, move past it, right? It's not about that. Eye contact doesn't mean autism. Yeah, maybe a lot of autistic children don't like eye contact. Like some people in the comment section will say, yeah, because eye contact is hurtful, like it hurts their eyes. It's too sensitive. I don't know that I'm not autistic. I don't have no idea. And there are also a lot of people who are adults who are autistic, who are my clients who tell me this is not true as well. But I'm not going to say this is a myth. I think it's. It's up to, like, individual differences, and I need to be careful because now a lot of people are saying that they are autistic themselves. And I am not an expert about autism. And adults or children, I just teach, like, autistic people. Right. Doesn't mean I'm an expert. You can listen to anyone on the Internet and do your own research and agree or disagree. Okay? So, yeah, no eye contact doesn't mean it's autism. You just need to remember that. Okay, so that's the end of today's video. It's a little bit longer than usual, but I just want to make sure that you understand a lot of these things are myths. Right. And to. Right. You have to start teaching and start trying to see whether these are real or not. Okay. Don't change something that was good into. And try, like, some. Sometimes I feel like parents don't know what to do, and they try too hard with the. With the kids. And the kids know that they're trying to teach, and they get a bad taste in their mouth, and they run away, and it becomes a very stressful thing for both parties, for both the parent and the child. Okay. Anyways, this is the end of the video. If you haven't, Please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist to grab a list of tools and toys that we recommend you to get when you start home therapy. All right, so that's it. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.