Behavioural Problems and Autism | www.agentsofspeech.com.micro

Hey guys. Welcome to our Monday lives. We skipped last week because there was a family event. But anyways, so this today we're going to talk about behavioral problems and autism. The reason why we're doing this, we're talking about this is because behavioral problems are mostly associated with autism and what we call when autistic child has a behavioral problem, we usually say that it's disruptive, usually say as a problematic behavior or ritualistic or whatever that the label is. Right? So when we're thinking about behavioral problems, the first thing that parents will think is, oh, how can my kid go to school, right? Or how can I make them want to play with their siblings or play with me or whatever. And recently has come to my attention that a lot more parents are talking about screen time virtual autism. And therefore, I want to get this straight first. First of all, virtual autism versus autism, I really don't know the distinction between those two, to be honest. I don't care either. The reason why is because if a child has exhibits such problematic behaviors or symptoms of autism, what do you need to do? You don't need to care what it is, Just try and treat it. If it works, then it works. If it's positive, then keep on doing it. If it does nothing, then change. Right? That's all we do in therapy. Find something, try it doesn't work, scrap it, try something else, scrap it until you see positive change. You keep on doing it, stick to it until it works. All right, and about problematic behavior, let's talk about the reasons why it happens. First of all, it's not because of autism that happens. Problematic behavior happens a lot with speech delayed children. The reason why is because most of all is that the child cannot express themselves correctly or they don't really have a way of getting our attention. Right. Or they don't really have a proper way of telling you, no proper way of, you know, getting something they want. So therefore, they use like different behaviors to survive in the environment that they are in. Okay? That's like one of the most important lessons that you have to understand. When they are doing something, they're trying to get out of a situation or get something they want. Children are very simple before, before 6, I would say before they have like complicated emotions and whatnot or whatever. Okay? So we're up to a slow start today. So if you're watching this, you know, just leave a comment, tell me where you're watching from, that'd be great to know and that would help us reach more parents. Okay? So if your child is not on the spectrum. What kind of problematic behavior would you expect? Well, there are loads of. The most things that I see the most. I just said most two times. But anyways, the thing that I see the most with parents and with kids is that children who cannot speak properly, they usually use a. They usually use ways to get attention that are. That isn't appropriate. Okay. And they crave for attention and therefore they use the. These methods. And you see that with a student of mine that he wants your attention and he starts breaking stuff. So in fact, he was just here today and he was like holding on to my car and he was like gonna like breaking it and he was like, look at me and smiling like that and has break, broke it. Broke it. Broken, broken, whatever. And he just wants attention from me. So when I like. Because the mother, they can't say, oh no, you better not do that. Like that's the thing that he wanted to get from you, right? So if you, if he does that and then you react this way, then he's going to keep on doing it because he thinks that it's. It's useful because now you really pay attention to him and he's like, he's having fun smiling at you, getting angry. So the worst thing you can do is actually feeding into that kind of thing and it becomes like pretty toxic. You know what I'm saying? So how to stop it is not just to ignore it, Right. But to actually look into it and think about, okay, why is this happening? Why is this happening here? And what should my reaction be? Like, how should I react so that it doesn't feed into a loop and it keeps on going, Right? So. Oh man, that's cool. From Facebook we have someone from. I don't know where that is. I know Washington, so great. And Brittany is from Quebec. Wow. Very far away, very cold. But thanks for being here, guys. So let me just keep on talking. Right? So you see this not only with like autistic children, you see, sorry, not autistic, non autistic, like children who are not on the spectrum. You also see that on children on the spectrum, right. Sometimes they might do things that are. To get your attention as well. And there are different reasons to why. Why this would happen. Right? So the first thing is it's. You are. You give a reaction. Bigger. A bigger reaction than them talking, Right. That's something that a lot of Asian parents are guilty of. Right? So if, like I don't know about, like, that's what I see at the very least, right? So Asian parents Would be when a child does something wrong, they would go like. But then when they do something correct, like, and that's it. So there's a discrepancy. So children on the spectrum are more likely to catch on patterns, right? So if, if I know that, hey man, they don't know whether it's right or wrong. They just know that if I do this way, I get a bigger response. So back in the day, my very first student, a child who was helping me with training, like, so back then, when I started as an ABA therapist, the center would make me go through like a whole month of training. And that during that training there were like three kids who we just kept on rotating and trying to teach them stuff. And there was a non verbal kid, right at 3, his name was Sean. I guess it's still okay to say his name because no one knows anyways. And he like, he was one of my favorite students of all time because like, he really taught me a lot, you know, like he was the only kid who would go up to him and say, hey Sean. And he was like, he's like, hey man. And he would call my name with like a funny accent. Hey, mean like that. I don't know why, but anyways, the, what I was trying to say was when, how we got him to start talking was that when he said like we were doing some verbal imitation. So like the way how we get kids to imitate our, our sounds, we were just doing ah, right? And it took us forever to get him to start imitating. Like he didn't understand that at all. And he had a lot of problematic behavior, like shouting, like throwing stuff, like biting, like throwing tantrums, being like a spinning top on the floor, you know, drooling on you and then headbutting you. There's a whole lot of stuff that was going on. And then what happened was like, what happened was like when, whenever, like there was one off time that he said ah. And then our supervisor like, oh please, give him a crazy reaction. So the whole room, everyone was like, whoa. And then he was like, what, what's going on? And then he caught onto it and he kept on doing ah and. And it kept on doing ah louder and louder. And every time he went louder and louder, our response got louder and louder. And then at a point where he was just, just trying, he was like, he thought it was like an echo, like cave, echo chamber. So he would go up to it and just try it out and go ah. Like that, you know, like, and to see if we would like, respond. And then at the end of the day, we had to start, like, weaning off our response and our attention towards him because it was just like too much. And then. So let's talk about this case because there's loads of stuff to talk about. This little guy. The other thing about prob. Another problematic behavior we did was about his screaming. So he got into this, like, pattern and rhythm where he would, like, just sit inside a room. You know how Hong Kong, like, we have really small, like, houses. Not like really small rooms, very small offices. So we were inside of a small room and we were working with him. And what happened was like, he just randomly started to shout, like, ah. And then he would, like, tense his body and then he would, like, his legs go straight. His back goes, like, back. And then he goes. And he looks, I don't know, into the abyss, you know, like. So that my friend is actually stimming, right? So why, like, why was he stimming? We don't know. Like, a lot of times, stimming, getting into tantrums. Some of the times it's just sensory problems and like, frustration release. So we don't really know why. And this is where I want to talk about the topic of punishment, which is not inside of the title. I know, but problematic behavior. Punishment is always the first thing we, like parents will ask, I've been punished when I get like this, Is it correct? Is it like, can I, can I do this? Or whatever. So punishment can be done. There's two types of punishments within, like, a behavioral therapy perspective. One is like the one that we know, right? Which is to give a punishment. To give a punishment. That's what we call a positive punishment, right? There's positive and negative punishments and there's positive and negative rewards. So that's the theory behind it. You don't really know. I'm just telling you in the layman term is that there are two types of punishments. One is that you give something, like, give something that is not nice to them. For instance, if you give them a beating, then you're giving them something that is not pleasant. So that's a positive punishment. So let me just check it up real quick, or else I might be getting it wrong because I haven't talked about this in a long time. Positive punishment. So if you search online, right, it says positive punishment is when you add a consequence to unwanted behavior. So you add a consequence. You add something. So it might scream at the child, it might tell them off. You might hit them a little bit. Some. Some Parents have seen that they spray water on the. On the kids, like, like how to teach cats or whatever. That's crazy to me. Don't do that. And, yeah, like, some of them just, like, hold on to them or, you know, like, hit them. That's the most often. So that's positive punishment. We don't want that. All right. We don't like positive punishment. You and I don't like it either. Okay, so let me just say hi to Dougla. What's up, man from Ontario. Great. Yeah. You don't want positive punishment, and you. And I don't like it, so don't do that. What you should be doing is negative punishment. So negative punishment is something like the removal of something pleasurable. Okay. So for instance, going to jail is kind of like right in the middle, right? Going to jail time out is actually like, there's a consequence towards it, but at the same time, you're taking them away. You're removing something that they. Removing a reward, removing something that is favorable. Right. So what kind of thing is like, we do is like we're always rainbows and roses when the. When there. There isn't a bad behavior. Right? We're always rainbow and roses when we're doing it. We're very happy. We're very. We're open, we're very. Okay. And this is where, like, a lot of parents. And if you see some of the YouTube comments that they would like, especially the ones that I talk about, like aba, there are some comments off comments that are talking about, oh, A.B. is not a science. They're like killing. They're like teaching autistic children to be, you know, neurotypical or whatever. Well, sorry, I'm not very into, like, the whole. The whole culture nowadays. Like, I'm not sure. I'm not even American myself. You know, I really don't know about, like, all these ableism, all these kind of things. You know, I'm a very practical Chinese guy, so I've. I have no idea, like, whatever that makes the kid more capable to, like, have a better chance in the world. I think it would be worth a chance for me to do it, you know, that's why. That's how I think. So what's the best way to do that is to take away something that they like, so back on to, like, little old Sean back in the day. And he. How we did it was like whenever, like my. My therapy, my supervisor came up with this genius idea. Not that genius, but, you know, like, give him full credit for it because he's he taught me a lot of stuff, right? So I'm here to teach you what he taught me he made. Because the kid loved Oreos. All right? So we made this token board, this board like, of Oreo. And it was like a puzzle, like a little puzzle. After he finished the whole Oreo, he could have an actual piece of Oreo. Okay? So there's. And how does he get it? So all he has to do, all he has to do is to not scream. And we will reward him for not screaming by giving him a token, right? So it's kind of like going to the. I say, like, you go into, like, you know those. One of those arcades where you get, like, tickets from playing stupid games, like throwing, like, balls and playing bath, like throwing basketballs, whatever. You get a certain number of tickets you can exchange for what you want. That. That's basically a token, right? A token economy, what we call. It's just stickers just after you get it, right? So after you got six of those Oreo sticker things, you could get an Oreo back. And all you had to do was just to not scream. And there was like, actually no task involved. We didn't need him to do anything and listen to anything. It's a separate reward system from what he was doing before. And therefore all he had to do was just to shut up and just listen. Just not even listen, just shut up. And I would say, hey, good. No shouting. Good job. Like, you're not staying quite. Good boy. And then. But then when he shouts, this is where we punish him. So to effectively deal with disruptive behavior, which is true for even for us, right? Even for us. How do we get rid of the habit? How do we do whatever? There must be both a reward and some sort of consequence sometimes, right? Punishment. So for him, whenever he screamed, we would take a whole big piece of Oreo. Not really that big, like a small piece, and we would eat it right in front of him. And it would piss him off, you know, it would really piss him off. So we would do it. And I hope back then, I like, it really hurt my ears, you know, in the small room, he was like, screaming like, ah, like. And then when I ate the Oreo, it was even louder than. Than normal. So we were punishing him and saying, that's not. That's not quiet, you know, like, that's not quiet. That's shouting. And we eat it, right? And then people are going to say, like, oh, man, you're like, you're Ming dude. This ABA method stuff, it's it's torturing the kid. It's not humane. It's not whatever. But dude, you want the kid to succeed at school. And I'm not even like, I'm not shouting at him. I'm not. Whatever. I'm just eating a piece of thing in front of him, right? And I know that this is going to get some backlash, but at the same time, if you like, sadly speaking, you know what, like, and we're being very realistic, right? An autistic child or a child who is like disabled in any way, sadly, most of the people aren't like them, right? Sadly, a lot of people are not autistic. So what do we do when the majority of people decide on something? We have to go on with what the majority likes, right? I also don't like a lot of things in the world, but the majority of people need that thing. So I cannot say no to it because most of them are like that. So it's the same as autistic children. If they come to this world, they cannot choose what they had. I've given by the Creator, God, whatever, universe, whatever that you believe in. Then at the very, at the, at the crux of it is that how do we get them to behave in a way that they can cope in the world? And therefore that's why we, we had to punish him for screaming out loud like that because he would know kindergarten in Hong Kong would take him. That's just the end of the story. We have, like, we have very limited resources we needed to, to interview, and that's why we're doing it. Right? And what's the result of that is that we got rid of this behavior in like a month. Okay? And obviously it came out in different ways of him stimming with his voice, but it wasn't as severe anymore. And because he made that switch and replaced that behavior with something else, it got a lot better. And how it got even better was that we taught him how to talk a lot more. A lot more, right? He could be talking in like three word sentences and that we taught him a bunch of play skills to go with it. Okay, so if you have that, then that's really great. You know, at the end of the day, you have to think about what problematic behaviors the reason behind it is or are. And then you need to think about how can you change the situation so that you can prevent it. And we talk about this a lot inside, like our full intro course, if you want to check it out, that is. But, but for a parent or For a teacher, for that matter, all you need to care about is how do you make sure that you know why the child is having that behavior at that point in time. Okay. Especially if they're on the spectrum, because they make lengths and patterns that are one to one, right? Only. Like if and only if that. That's the word, mathematically speaking, right? If and only if this happens, then this happens. Right? So this is what happens a lot. That a lot of parents, by accident, they feed into that, kind of into what the kid wants, right? And, you know, like, you have to give them a replacement. Maybe it's talking, maybe it's saying, like, giving you something. Maybe it's like doing something else. Counting down, doing routine, sing a song, whatever. And it calms them down or whatever. And it really depends on the situation, right? So the last thing I want is that, you know, like a parent, you know, I'm really grateful that, you know, on our. On our email newsletter, if you haven't been on our new email newsletter, I write an email every, like, every week and sometimes a lot more during the week. And I talk a lot about, like, things that you should change in your mindset. Because just now my wife was saying, oh, Ming, you should do more videos about teaching how to use specific toys in a specific way. Whilst I really think that is a great idea and a lot of people are doing it already, I think, you know, I do have videos like that as well. But the problem is, like, when the parents use those methods, the feedback that I get, especially through email, where we can have, like, a better conversation or, like, even in the membership that we have, where parents, like, pay me money to, like, look at videos and coach them and guide them. The problem is their mindset is not correct. When you're going into it. If you think that having a toy and knowing how to use it will make your child talk, that's already kind of wrong. Because what happens is that, oh, yeah, I teach you how to use the car slide like that. But then at the same time, what are you. What are you doing? You're still, like, asking a lot of questions. You're still forcing them to talk before they're able to, like, play with a toy, then it's not play anymore, right? It always starts off from, like, the. The want of the kid. Why. Why do they want to do it? You know, do they even want to do it? Why are they having this disruptive behavior? Why would they choose to do that instead of play with you? Right? And those are the things. The only thing you can control is your response and your reaction to the kid. And that comes from how you think. It's not about, like, instruction that I give you, right? Because after you watched it, you interpreted it with your mindset and then you went ahead and you did it. And then when you did it, you're like, oh man, I already copied it one to one and it's not working. And I can tell you 100% because I've been coaching parents, I've been teaching therapists, I've been trained myself from, by other people that if there isn't instantaneous feedback when you're doing it, you won't catch yourself doing those stupid things. Right? And a lot of people say, oh yeah, Michael Jordan is the best basketball player out there. Why does he still need to coach? It's because a third eye is always a better right? So you need to remember that. And you know, just like I, I, I wish that Agents of Speech was more of a, what's that called? Is the best online resource in the world for parents. But sadly, there's a lot of stuff that I feel like needs to be done. And the best thing, you know, I wish what I could do is like, you do something. I put a headset here, like here, and I'm looking through your eye, like looking through like a drone or something. And I say, hey, do this, do that. Stop saying this now. Say this. Try this instead of, oh, it doesn't work. Try this instead. You know, like, that's what I'm trying to mimic here. And the only way to do that is to change your, how you think first. And that's why a lot of the emails, the videos and whatever is informational. Informational, but it's not like very tactical, you know, like, it's not like, oh, do this today. Or like handicraft ideas for like speech delay kits or, you know, like three play methods for this summer or whatever. Like, oh, it's rainy season. Like, how do you use puddled water to play with kids or whatever, or make them talk with socks or whatever, you know, like, these are crazy. I get it. A lot of people watch it too. But I'm not sure if, like, that's the thing. I want to, I want to, I want to teach you guys because to be honest, if you know how to think and know how to know your kid, like, well, and you know how to hold an activity that's, and how to explain a task correctly, you can play with your child even with like just plastic cups or just with anything lying around. It's not about the tool or how you use it. It's about, like, you knowing what's going on and, like, how to make it fun. Right. So I guess that's what I wanted to talk about today as well. Just to think about, like, how we can, like, help you guys more. Right. Because that's where I get my most satisfaction from to be on, like, to be very honest with you, like, I was thinking about it. Why would I do, like, a weekly live video for, like, the past, like, two years? I don't even know. But yeah, that's pretty much it. So, Kim from Florida. Great. That's it for today. Our lives are a little cut shorter right now, but that's pretty much it. I just wanted to share. The title is not as sexy as it should be. That that's why there's not a lot of people today. But thank you so much for joining and I'll see you next Monday. Bye. Bye.