5 Truths About Getting Autistic Children to Speak

Five truths about getting autistic children to speak. The first one is show, don't tell, meaning the more you say something through speech, the harder it is for someone to understand, let alone someone who is on the spectrum who may or may not have developed the whole the language correctly and the order that we did. So a lot of the times we call this task demonstration. If we want a child on the spectrum to understand what we want, whether he or she is non verbal, all the way up to speaking it in full narrative, narrative sentences, stories going back and forth in the conversation, it's always better to show and don't tell. The reason is because when we represent something with words and with actions and our props, it'll be much easier for the child to understand. Okay. By the way, my name is Ming from agentsofspeech.com I'm a speech therapist. We coach parents speech therapy techniques at home. Okay. So more on the show don't tell is that, for instance, if I want a child to follow me and do some actions and do some play, right? What I do is like I take their hand, finish it for them, and that's it. And give them a reward and praise and stuff, right? I don't tell them what they do. Okay. First you cut the apple and then you put it in the whatever. I don't do that. I take your hand and show it to them like that. And there's the same. Even if we get to a level where we're teaching like a back and forth conversation, right. We show it by demonstration between two people who know what to do first, right. We do a demo and then after that we will. Okay, now it's your turn. And then we do it together as a role play, right? So show, don't tell. It works on every level. Okay. Second of all, what's in it for that? So a lot of people think, Ming, you're going to talk about rewards again. Yes. And also children who are above six and all the way up to like adulthood, they need to know what's in it for them. Why do they have to learn to communicate? So we had parent reach out around three years ago, and then she was like, oh, my daughter can text on WhatsApp about what she wants to buy, what takeaway she wants, but she just can't talk. She's stuck at vowel. She's like, ah, like that. She was on the spectrum. They didn't even know she could write. It was like the situation from the movie the Accountant. So Accountant two came out and then the mastermind super smart girl on the computer behind the scenes, can only talk through iPad. So it's like that. And what was lacking, I told the mother, was that we have to tell them what's in it for them to communicate. Because the daughter actually when I said that, I was like, yeah, how did you know? She literally texted me on WhatsApp saying, I don't see a point. Why should I learn talking? I can talk to you with WhatsApp, but then you have to tell them if you don't like, if you don't love, what are they, you know, make them fomo. What are you missing out? Right? You can do this, you can play that, you can do X, Y, Z. And then one of the my ex clients, she's an adult now, she can do whatever. Like she worked and do a lot of things, right? The reason why she communicated more, she learned how to speak more, was because she wanted to become a teacher to other autistic people, right? So then she had to push herself. So before the age of six, just rewards, praises, rewards, socially speaking, anything using your phone, screen time, like snacks, whatever, outside activities, that's all cool. After six, you will have to start thinking about something more. On a social level, on a personal level, how do you communicate to your child? How do you show your child that actually communicating with language, speech and having social relationships is beneficial to the human existence? That's actually a very tough thing to do. Okay, Number three is that you have to think about your interaction. If you're teaching your child at home, you need to think about whether it's child led or parent led. There's nothing in between. Okay? Either if you do child led, you do a child led 100% of the time. Okay? For the therapy, right? Not for the interaction for the therapy. Or you can go 100% parent led. Okay? Now this is a truth because if you do both, it gets very confusing to children who are on a spectrum, right? Are you letting me do this or are you trying to get me into a structured thing? So a lot of times, and nowadays therapy and the whole world is more towards child led. So that's fine. But the huge caveat is that a lot of parents don't know what to do and how to do it properly. Because a lot of the times what I see, the biggest mistake is that parents keep quizzing the child. So how's that child led? So it's hard to teach. It takes a long time to learn therapy techniques, especially the naturalistic way of having you leaving your child to do whatever. But if you do parent led or clinician led or teacher led, it's easier for you. And at the same time, it's harder on you because you're trying to get your child to do your bit. Right? Which means you will have to sacrifice some stuff or that you will have to like, that there will be some friction in your relationship. Right? And that's not what parents like. All right, so the next thing I want to talk about is play. So play for a lot of autistic people and children is not play yet. It's a taught skill. So I use this example a lot of times. I always tell the mothers who watch this channel is, do you like watching football or soccer? And they're like, no, but I don't know what it's about. Right? The thing is, you cannot enjoy football if you don't know what the rules are. You don't know what the plays are gonna do. What are they doing? Why is that a foul? And that's not a foul. What's happening? And it's the same for guys. We don't understand a lot of things. We go to Sephora. I don't know what the heck that machine or that tool is for. And I don't find it interesting because I don't know. And it's the same for children, especially those who are on the spectrum, because they have such narrow focuses. They don't really care about other things. And our job is to widen their interest. Right? So play is a taught skill. You need to teach for them to like it. Right? And it's just. My wife watches Netflix and she just plays something and I'm not interested because I don't know what's going on. So then she keeps on telling me a little bit about it, and I start asking questions and then I'm hooked up. Right? It's the same with play. So that's what you want to try to do with children on the spectrum, that you need to treat play as a tot. There was a parent from Singapore that she was working with us. She is still working with us. And then she was like, I don't understand why my child doesn't like playing. And I'm like, yo, if you don't like. If she. He's not playing, what does he do? He's all running around, whatever. That's his play, right? When we're trying to push our conventional play in air quotes, it's going to take a lot of friction because they don't find it fun. So then we need to teach it as if it's a skill to acquire. Okay, enough of that. The last thing is something that was like going back to the very beginning of all the. Even like psychology is that every behavior is a means to an end. Right? If we as human beings, our behavior, all that we do, there must be a function, there must be a reason behind it, okay? And so when you're going into it, I want you to start thinking about it going back to that Singaporean mother. Why is the child not liking the play? Why is he biting on the toy knife? What is the biting of the toy knife telling you? Right? There's only two reasons. Number one is that he's thinking, where's my reward? Give it to me now. And the second one is that he's trying to get out of the plane, trying to escape from it. So the first one is the true answer. We all know why, because we taught him a few words. We taught him open and I want. So he kept on saying open I want versus he just wants it. He wants access to the rewards. And therefore he's. When he's saying out loud the words that he learned and he doesn't get rewarded for it, he gets into a frustration because that's the only thing he knows how to communicate. So it's a means to an end. And a lot of times children who are below six years old, a lot of the functions that they do is to get their way. Okay? So you need to think about every behavior. What are they trying to communicate with us? What is it that they want? Okay, how can I teach them something easier for them to get what they want? That is the main goal of just speech therapy, language therapy, communication therapy, whatever you like to call it. So at the end of the day, behavior that we all do has a means to an end. And then you say, how about those like stimming or whatever? Yeah, those are self entertaining things. We do it without anyone around us. And that's something we have to explore later because that's a replacement for a lot of things. For instance, when we're bored, we go into self stimulating activities. Okay? And so children are the same when you deal with play skills, when you deal with other things, those diminish. Because you cannot take away and delete a behavior. You can only replace it with something that is more appropriate in air quotes. And sadly speaking, the people who are deciding what's appropriate or not are neurotypical people like you and I. So at the end of the day, that's just how it is. But then we need to understand all behaviors is a means to an end. And how do we change that behavior to get a better result for them? And that's communication, right? How do you say something properly? Right. If you ask for, to give you example, if I went to, I was late for my flight, I went to the flight to the ground staff and I was like screaming and shouting, I was like, hey man, there's a huge problem. I want to refund, whatever. Do you think I'll get any good treatment? No, but if I went to them, I'm like, I'm sorry man. There was a. Whatever. Is there anything you can do for me? Yada. Which one has a higher likelihood of succeeding? Obviously being nice and telling them that you're sorry and stuff will get a better result. And I don't want you to think it's always tantrums from children. It's about how they say something. Right. The reason behind it may always be good. Be okay, be like self centered or whatever it is. But then there's a better way of doing it, something more appropriate that makes other people feel more comfortable. Okay, so autistic children don't understand that just yet. Okay. Whether they're non verbal or all the way over here conversational. This is a truth that every behavior is a means to an end. And as a therapist, as a teacher, as a parent, our job is to teach them a better way of getting what they want through talking and gesturing and communicating like body language and so on. That's all for right now. And if you want to ask more questions about this, you want to contribute and talk to other parents, you can go to www.agentsofspeech.com course. We have tons of courses that teaches you to go to teach your child from no words all the way to storytelling. And then also you get to meet up with parents all around the world. Okay, that's all. If you like this video, you can watch the next one, right? Thank you. See ya.