5 Steps to Verbal Imitation

I'm doing this live on both platforms. I'm just trying out. Okay, so hey guys, today we're going to talk about five steps you need to get to verbal imitation. And just let me tell you what verbal imitation is. What it is is that verbal imitation just means if your child can actually imitate what you say when you want them to. So for instance, if you go to like a lot of therapists, the first thing they check is their imitation skills. And what they do is like, for instance, you say, let's say microphone, like I'm holding one. And the kid kind of tries and says microphone, like that's imitation. Okay? It doesn't mean that they get it 100% correct, but at least they understand that they have to imitate. Okay? And imitation is actually a pre linguistic skill. And what it really means is that, hey, you gotta have. There's a set of skills that you need to be able to do before they can actually talk and communicate. Like everybody. Like everyone. So imitation is very important. And why I want to talk about this five steps is because I've been using this subconsciously and because, you know, I've been in masters and you know, and my work experience has taught me that, that, oh, I have to do these steps. But I've never really written down, okay, I've never really written down because it's always in my head. And it doesn't matter that, you know, I know it or my colleagues know it. But now because of the current situation, I feel like a lot of parents should know exactly the steps. Whereas if you come to me on like a physical location, I can just tell you exactly what to do step by step along the way. But now there's not enough contact with me and all I can do is do these lives. And so I want to equip you with these knowledge. If your child is having problems imitating or just like just ignoring you, then maybe you should watch this. Okay. And keep the questions coming if you want to. This is a very free flow format. I didn't tell anyone that I'm going live today. I'm just trying it out because I'm doing it both on Facebook and YouTube, which you don't know what I'm doing because I'm like pointing both ways anyways. So first step of imitation is always to let the child know that there's a turn taking. Right? You've heard it many, many times that I've talked about. I've talked about doing that open palm gesture and that that's the first step and why do we do the open palm gesture whenever your child wants something? This is the open palm dot, by the way, like this, okay? Why do we do that? It's because it puts the child on the receiving end. They're starting to wait for us, all right? They're starting to wait for us. And instead of them snatching, crying, pulling and stuff, they're putting the hand out and waiting to receive something from us. And when you do, when your child understands that the next steps, you can increase the demand. Because now they're waiting and they're looking at you, they're gonna know that, okay, I gotta do something to get what I want. Okay? The first step is always open palm. Is always open palm. So when you do that, you gotta make it consistent. And there's a lot of our members of agents of speech and just parents in general who have heard this advice and are trying it, and they're like, hey, man, dude, it's not going anywhere. Well, let me tell you, even if you come to me, right, it would take me around a month of this kind of work to get it consistent. And think about if your child is at home, they're pretty much the king or the queen at home. You guys listen to the child all the time. Speech delay children are bossy, as a matter of fact, I just don't know why. It's just a common theme and a common personality trait. So how you're gonna tackle that is that it's gonna take longer for you to establish the open palm than me in my clinic, for sure. Okay, so, for instance, if you've watched the video about tenure, I can only talk about tenure because I got her consent. Whereas other parents, they don't really want to be that public. And I totally understand. But with tenure, and with tenure at home, it took her. I just downloaded all the videos she sent me, and I look back at my notes. Actually took her around a month to two months to actually establish the open palm. So you have to have a very, like, clear goal in your mind. If the first step is always open palm. And if you. You right now, you're saying that, hey, after like, one week or two, it doesn't work. Hey, you got to strap it on. Because even for tenure, who I always talk about only because I have her consent, is that, dude, it takes around two months for your child to be okay with asking stuff, asking permission from you at home. Okay? Once that's okay, that's the first step with the open palm and everything, then you go on to the next step. The next step is imitation of, like, body actions. And there's a lot of body actions that you can use. But when you do body actions, you have to think. You have to think, hey, does my child need to sit down for this? And a lot of parents are asking me. They're like, me, my child isn't sitting down. Whenever I tell them to sit down, they run away or something. Or I can't get my child to sit down to do work. And ming, you're telling me to do five to ten minutes a day. How does it even work? So let me help you break it down. Okay? Whenever you are trying to get your child to sit down, you need to tell them that all the good stuff happens when you sit down with me. And how you do that is basically, you don't ask them to sit down. You don't tell them to do anything. You should entice them. You should entice them. And what I mean by entice is that. So I'm moving my microphone is that it's like teaching a cat. So one of the videos that I sent to my clients over the Internet is me shaking the thing. What's that called? The snack. The cat snacks. That I have, like, three cats here, right? And when I shake it, they all come to me naturally. So that's what you need to do with your child. You don't need to, like, force them. Talk loud and call the names and whatever. You don't need to say, hey, hey, come, Billy, Billy, look, sit down. Come on, come on. That's totally unnecessary. What you need to do instead is to shake the thing that he or she wants, and they will come for it, okay? If they don't come, then it means that it's not good enough for them. You need to try something harder in the beginning. When your child isn't listening to you, you need to get the best stuff ever, okay? It doesn't make any sense for them to actually do work with you if you have, like, stuff that they can get on a daily basis, right? I mean, think about it. If the country gives us, like, $1,000 per month and you tell me to work, but I also get $1,000 per month, what am I going to do? I'm going to be at home, man. So it's the same thing. So in the beginning, before they enjoy interacting with you or enjoy playing. Enjoy sitting down. I was talking about sitting down. Is that your thing? Your thing that your snack, your toy must be like a, a, a, a, a grade. Okay? A grade. Very high. If your child loves candy, use candy. If your child will die for chocolate, use, use chocolate. If you're, you know, if your child will pounce at you for, for your hand phone, for your cell phone, whatever you call it in your country, with your smartphone, use your smartphone. Okay, so you don't need to talk, you don't need to do whatever. If they run away, let them run away. Right? If they run away, then let them run away. And then entice them to come back by shaking it or playing with it. Putting the volume of your phone on the loudest so that they come back, they try to look and then you put them back on the seat and when they sit down, just give it to them. Then they understand. Okay. Sitting down means I can use it or I can eat it. Sorry, that's my cat. He's very loud. Anyways, go anyways. So once you're able to entice them to come over and do the open palm, you need to think about whether you need to sit down or not. Right, I was getting carried away. Sorry. So you need to think about whether to let your child sit down or not. There's like just one thing you need to think about. Are they old enough? Are they over the age of three? If they're over the age of three, yes. Teach sitting down because three is about kindergarten age. They're about to use chairs anyways and their legs are actually long enough to touch the ground. Whereas if it's two, it's better if you stick to just them standing up or on the floor. I would like them to be standing up for two year olds because it's just easier. So. Yeah, so you need to think about whether they can. You need them to sit or not. Okay. And, and then once you know that, okay, I need to teach them sit down. I don't need to talk actually. All I need to do is to entice them and shake it. If they don't want it, then they don't want it. There's nothing you can do. Right after that they understand that sitting down is something that is fun. And they get like to play with the phone, they get to eat, they get to play with iPad, you know, the best toy ever. Then you should let them know that those things only happen on the table or those things only happen when you listen to mom or dad. Okay. After that we're going to body imitations. And what is the body imitation? That's like step two, Right? Body imitation. There's a few levels of it. The first level is this what we call gross motor, if you heard of it, Gross motor is just, let me take a sip of water. Gross model is just big actions, okay? Just big. Sorry, clip this on just big body action. So for instance, if I tell a child to do this, like, tap your head. That's gross motor. Tap the table. That's gross motor. Okay, Put your hands up. That's gross motor. Stamp your feet, stomp your feet. Or that's also cross motor. So these gross motors, let's see if your child can actually do it. And why we target these actions. Hey, there's nothing to do with speech, right? Or language. It's because they're more likely to do it. They're more likely to do it whenever they're more likely to do it. We're going to target those first. They're not used to listening to you. You target the most likely things that they will do, and then just let them do it. And when they do it, you give them something in return. So in effect, you're teaching them, you're setting them up for success, number one. Number two is when they succeed, they get rewarded. And number three, because of this relationship, they like to talk to you. All right? So with that said, why we do body imitation for Grossmorter, that's step two, by the way. The first step is open palm. Second step is like body imitations with grox motor. Why we do that is because we want them to listen to us nicely. And all the songs in the kindergarten, they all use these actions, right? If you're happy and, you know, clap your hands, right? All this stuff. Heads, shoulders, misentos, all those songs they use gross motor, big movements. So it's good that we're teaching, because later on, it's actually, there's like a social aspect to it that will help them once they get to kindergarten, right? And after. After this gross motor, you want to go the next step, the third step is actually a little more fine, okay? And what I mean by fine is that, you know, it's around the face. And this is where you can teach body parts and. Excuse me, and stuff on your face. So for instance, you can teach nose, like forehead, ears, mouth, cheeks, neck, chin, teeth, all these. You're teaching your child to actually look at you. Because at this third step, because these big body movements, they don't really need to look, right? So this is where, like, eye contact comes into play. Because they now have to look intentfully at what you're doing to your face, right? It might be your nose, it might be your ears. Of your hair, your teeth, your chin, your mouth, your cheeks, these things, they have to look because if they don't look, they don't know where you're pointing because the big direction is around the face. Some children in the beginning, because they don't look, they just do this. So you want to help them by taking their hand and doing it. And the good thing about body imitation, body actions or like cross motor stuff is that you can actually help them. Whereas speech, how are you going to make them talk? You cannot do it. You just, whatever you do, you can't do it. But for body imitation, you can take their hands and help them finish it and then give them the goodies that they want. So that's another thing that you're setting up for them to succeed. Right, so what happens after the third step? The third step is like little fine motor body imitation stuff. The fourth step is to actually do oral motor stuff. And you know, if you've been following what I've been talking about on this channel or on Facebook, is that, hey, I hate oral motor without a goal. But this is, there's a goal. So it's not really auromotive, but it's like mouth shape imitation. Okay? So after looking at my notes and stuff, I feel like this is the always the step, the fourth step that I would go. For me, these four steps, it might as well just happen in one hour. But for you it might take around like three months. And I'm not even joking because those three months aren't for yourself. Sorry, aren't for your son or daughter. It's for yourself because you're actually learning a new skill and how to teach children who don't respond to normal commands. And normal teaching and what I mean by normal is just mainstream stuff. Okay, so that's actually for you. And I feel that afterwards it accelerates really fast because you become a better teacher and a therapist. So. Right, so the fourth step is the oral movement imitation. Right. So we want to start with like ah, E, oo, E, o, because basically those are the most basic vowels that you will see in multiple languages. Not English though. In Bahasa Indonesia, yeah. In Japanese, yes. In Chinese, not really. But anyways, those are the easy vowels because you can actually see distinctive mouth shapes. Okay, so the first one, we don't use sounds yet. We just say do this like that, see if your child actually looks. And for this one, we can still help a little bit. We can push. Use your thumb and push the jaw down. It will not be hard if you do it the right way. It won't hurt your child if you do it the right way. You push it down like that. All right? So when you do that, it helps them to understand that you're helping them, number one. Number two is that they have to look at the mouth and imitate what's here. Okay? So you see, we step by step go from really far away, the big actions to smaller, smaller, smaller, and come to here. And there are some tricks to going from these kind of imitations to the mouth. All right? And that's it. That's to like go closer, closer, closer, closer, like that. And you need to do it in succession, right? And after that you want to do E like that. And how you help is two fingers here. Go like that, see if it helps. It usually does. And then U and then A is here. Can't really see like that. What I like to do for these as well, which I learned from my previous boss in Hong Kong, there's a senior therapist there, crazy good tip is to use these kind of cards that I just downloaded from the Internet. If you just search for mouse shape children who are on the spectrum or not, they're not used to looking at our faces. So if your child is already trained under like ABA methods or like therapists out and about and I don't know, in your city who love using cards, these are going to help to teach them to switch from looking at cards towards my mouth. Because a lot of children are in this era are stuck with cards. There was just let me sidetrack for a little bit. There was one time I was working in. I was not working. I was at a training in Jakarta for therapists at quite, what's that called? Quite a famous school in Jakarta for special needs children. And then one thing that I thought was very alarming. Now I'm not like, you know, I'm not criticizing or anything. I just thought it was rather funny, okay, that they would look at other therapists cards and then say, oh my God, where do you get that? How come that is so useful, this card? But when I looked at the card, it was like teaching why questions. Which is very difficult to. Sorry, drop something very difficult to use cards to teach. So the thing is the reliance on using flashcards and everything is actually quite a problem in parents and therapists and teachers because now it's not tailor made for your child. But anyways, so these kind of cards help your child to. I made it myself, by the way. It's laminated. If you can see it. See it's Laminated. Laminated. So you can use it to help your child to do the mouth shape. So if I put it here, first of all, if they don't look at me, that's fine. I just put it in their face and go like that. They're gonna try, right? And slowly when I put it here, I can fade it out and it's my mouth. So that's how I do it and how I learned to do it. Thank you so much for my boss back then for teaching me so many useful tips. So that's good. Well, now once your child can do all these, all these mouth shapes, the next step, the last step, the fifth step, is to do verbal imitation. And this is where a lot of people miss the mark because they always start from like imitating words, which is a big no, no, because dude, if they can imitate words, those sounds, they would have done it a long time ago. They don't need your help already, man. They're not speech delayed, they're not disordered. They don't have problems in language department. So, you know, they can get out of my office. But the thing is, it's not. So what you need to think about is from this one, what's the most easy, no brainer sound that can. That a child can do? Obviously it's like vowels, right? So from here you go ah, like that, you start to make sounds. But the thing is, children cannot make the link between the mouth shape and the sound yet. So it's going to take another month for you for tenor's case, right? When I look back at my notes and the videos, it took her around like a month or two. So if you look at the video about tenure after this live, you will see that she's like very happy about it because you know, it took her so long. So when that happens, like you need to go ah, like that. How do you bridge that gap? Because they don't know they have to imitate the sound once they understand that sound has an impact on people. That you can use like intentful sound to make a request. Instead of open palm and waiting, they're going to use the easiest way, which is to speak. So how do you bridge it from. To ah. Obviously every time from now on, your. Your child is still sitting on the chair, you're still giving them goodies, you're still giving instructions. But now the instruction adds one more. And you use sounds now because now their mouth shape is good. So when you go ah, like that, they might be. Your child might be. Let's Say I'm the child. There might be, like, still with nothing. Okay, that's fine. Okay. So there are a few tricks that you can use to help you. So for, ah, I like to do this, like, because it's funny, right. And then I'll put it on. I'll do it on the child, see if anything comes out. Usually not really. Right. But given the time, as time goes on, they might pick it up. Okay. And then the other. The one that I like for. Ooh. Like that is to use a straw. And then when you use a straw and you go ooh, there's an echo inside the. Inside the tube that makes it fun. Okay. So let's see if it works or not. But to be honest, it really comes down to hard work, man. Like, if your child can imitate from body to face, pointing your face wherever to fine motor and oral motor imitation, chances are they can do the sound. But it takes a long time for them to understand what's going on. At the end of the day, it's about understanding. All right? And because they don't understand our language, it's going to take a lot of showing instead of telling, showing how to do it instead of telling. So once you understand that and accept that as a fact, that's going to take a lot of time on your end to actually show your child exactly what they need to do, then your life is going to be a lot easier. Okay. Just accept that it's going to be difficult. You think about people who do it for a living, like me. I take a long time to establish these things as well. So you have to be okay with it that there will be failures, there will be ups and downs. One day they can do it, the other they cannot. You have to accept that. If you cannot accept that, then you shouldn't be in this game of doing it on your own. Okay. You should find someone to come to your house for a lot of money and do it for them. All right? And I get. I'm getting a question. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I'm just reading it off Facebook. You can still ask questions on YouTube if you want. Okay. So Anita says ming. So basically, if my daughter is still in step three, she is not ready for step four. If I use song, she will imitate IU at all, but without song, it's rare. She will imitate me. Yep. So, Anita, you are correct. Yeah. So in step three, we're talking about touching the face, Right? Touching the face. The next step, the step four, is just like the mouth shakes. So your child probably understands under the context of a song, with the help of a song, she can do it. Meaning that anything outside of the song, she won't follow you. So the song helps because it gives her a strong routine. But the routine between you and your child isn't strong yet. So what I was about to reply you privately, but I'll just tell you here, since you're watching, is that you should let your child come to you, okay? If your child runs away from the chair, just let her. So the. The working relationship isn't there yet. It just isn't there yet. So it's going to take some time to build it. Maybe like one, one month. And you've been doing this for less than two months, right? If I don't remember wrong. So how to do this is actually to let her come to you. And if her open palm is good, as you told me, the next step is to use is to do with these small stuff like. Okay, put your hand up, touch your nose, touch your mouth. Good girl. Here you go. Like that. So it needs to be quick and fast. And she needs to understand that the routine of listening to mom is fun. Because after very easy tasks like touching nose, whatever, I can get what I want. Okay? So that's the problem right here, man. That's the problem. The routine of listening to you, Anita, is not solid yet. So you have to be careful about that. You have to think about how to. How to. I wouldn't say. I was trying to say control, but I don't want to say that. Is that you need to bring the control back to your side. Because right now it seems like it sounds like that she dictates. She still thinks that in her mind she can. She can do things her way. But if you really need to teach her to imitate words, you got to. You must make her do it your way. Okay, and before that, let me show you what I mean. Okay, so it's. Let me show you. Let me get something. So my cats are pretty well trained, you know, like if I have a snack here, check it out. I don't talk, I don't call. Oops, sorry for that. So they're pretty well trained. They know how to wait and everything. So if I do this, you see, he's already here, right? Two cats are around me, so they're already here. And then I can actually see and I can actually start doing tasks once they're around. All right? And even if I put it here, she's not going to eat it. Because she's well trained to wait for me. Okay, so that's what you need, the relationship between you and your child is that you need to. In the beginning, right? Okay. We're talking about, like, training animals, and it's a little unethical when we think about it that way. But in the beginning, if you go through these five steps and you're like, man, they're running away everything. How do I even do it? Right? I'm still holding the food. She's not eating it because she knows this cat knows. So, same as your child, you need to be able to entice them by shaking that little snack thing or like the toy or handphone on full volume. They come over and they start listening to you. Right? So when that happens, you can actually. You can actually command what you want them to do. When you can command what you want them to do, it's very, very fast that you can get them to imitate through those five steps. Number one, open palm. Step one. Step two, big body imitations. Step three, small body imitations. The mouth, body part. Sorry. And then step four, the mouth shapes for A, I, U, E, O. And then afterwards, vowel imitation. And ultimately words. Right. So I'm going to give this to her. Here we go. Yeah. So that's the thing that you need to go. You need to, you know, power through Anita is that she needs to be okay with you controlling the stuff that you have. Okay? So keep the questions coming. As long as you ask, I'll give the. Give the answer to you at your stage right now. Okay. Don't be. I know it's frustrating, right? Because it's. It takes a long time. And, like, if you think about it, looking back at my notes before making this video, these five steps, sometimes it takes like one hour for me. Sometimes it takes like three months for me. Sometimes I want to give up as well, man. Like, it's. It's just very difficult. And when you want to, when you're doing these things to these five steps to your child, you're breaking a pattern. You're breaking their pattern. If your child is holding your hand, pulling you towards something they want, you're breaking their pattern to listen to you, okay? Whenever you break a pattern, people don't like it, especially kids and elderly. You break a pattern, people don't like it at all. And the reason why they listen to you is that you got the good stuff. The way that they operate in this world is different now because of what you're doing to them. And it's very Hard for them to understand. So once you go through these five steps, you have to remember, change takes time. It doesn't change within, like, the first hour. People who can do that are people who are doing it for a living, like myself. There are very, very senior and experienced therapists out there that can do it even faster than I am and I. Than I do. There are also people who are less qualified or whatever you call it, less experienced, who do it in less time. But you need to think about. You are also starting from the beginning with your child. So the very reason that you're watching these kind of videos makes you. Makes you, like, ahead of the herd already, at least. You're, like, taking the time to learn this kind of stuff, whereas people are like, just so my. My cat's moving. The camera is just, like, hoping that someone would change their behavior for them, which is impossible, by the way. So kudos to you guys watching right now. All right, so if there isn't any more questions, I'll just, like, drink some water and wait for some questions to come in. If not, then I'm gonna stop the live and do something else. Okay. It. There's some lag between live and the chat, but it seems like there's not many people asking questions anyways right now, so I'll go ahead and end it. Oh, Anita, thank you for saying that's very helpful. No worries. Remember what I said just now. Go try and do it. All right, so with that said, thanks for everyone watching today. And I'm going to. I've said it many times. I'm going to let you guys know the live schedules that you can actually ask me stuff. I think where I'm gonna go, like three times a week. Maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday, maybe. I don't know. I will ask in a poll to what times are the best for you. Okay. The people who actually watch you guys, right? Ask you guys what time is the best for you guys, okay? If. If you know. Hey, Wendy. No, it's okay. You can watch back, man. It's fine. If you have any questions, put them in the comments here. Okay? Put them in the comments here and just let me know later on. Yeah, you're not late. It's just that I didn't tell anyone. I'm trying to see how it works and see if I can do a live at the same time from YouTube and also Facebook. Maybe Instagram next time. But Instagram kind of needs another setup as well, right? Which isn't that cool. All right, then. Thanks for tuning in, guys. If you just joined us. You can just watch from the beginning. It'll just be uploaded to YouTube or whatever. I do tell you the five steps for imitation. Verbal imitation. By the way, if you haven't watched it, it takes a long time. Okay, that's just what I'm going to say. Thanks. I'm going to end it now. Thank you. Bye.