Child Speaks When She/He NEEDS Something From You

Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today I want to talk about why your child is stuck with saying I want or only speaks when he or she needs something from you. Okay, so let's dive right in. First of all, is something what we call limited language functions. Okay? You might hear this in different ways and different, you know, different words and stuff, but language function means what the use of the language is. For instance, if they're asking for something they need, they. That's what we call requesting. Some people call it manding. And that's one language function. What's happening when a child who only speaks when they need something is because they think language is only for a certain language function, in this case is requesting. Okay? So you need to teach children different language functions. There's a lot, I'm sure that your child has more than just requesting. There must be some sort of negation meaning, like say no, some sort of protesting. Like when you tell them to do something, they're like, ah, whatever. They must have some way of commenting, must have some way of like just entertaining themselves with languages. But at the same time, do they have words for those functions? I don't know about that. Right? So that's why to. The second point is that we need to teach more than need based communication. Okay? We need to go away from just teaching children to talk when they need something. All right, and what does that mean? Okay. In a lot of therapy, especially in aba, they focus on. Or we, I would say, because we're all therapists, we're focusing on teaching the child to like, get something by speaking and then they understand. Oh, the power of speech is, is great because all I need to do is to flap my lips and I get something I want. So this is the strongest way of teaching communication. So there are other communication functions or language functions that we can teach. So for instance, commenting is one of the ones that we try to strive for. Because when we can get a child to start commenting on things or silly things or just any old thing that we're doing or they are doing, then already you have somewhat of a communication going on and they can initiate something without wanting something from you. So commenting is very, very important in our everyday life. Right. Second of all, can they like use language to regulate our behavior? For instance, if we do something wrong, can they tell us, hey man, that's wrong. Like you should, you're supposed to like, do this and do that. Can they do that? Like, so this all starts with play, okay? Like, I know everyone has Been talking about this. Everyone from their grandma, from whatever, therapist with like 20 years of experience, whatever, right? Experts, clinical psychologists, the list goes on. They all say, oh, play is very important. Well, why? Because play creates a context of which children can now learn different language functions. Right? So the easiest one is obviously requesting. So can you do other things like call, commenting on stuff, right. Asking for permission, like, can I whatever. That's still kind of requesting, but it's a little different already. Yeah. And maybe that you can. If they understand how to take turns and you skip their turn, they can regulate a behavior and say, no, no, Ming, no mom, I want to. Like, like it's my turn already. Something like that. So therefore the triggering event is different for different language functions. It's not only when they want something. And that's why it becomes frustrating for parents because they can only hear their children talk whenever they want something. Right. So what can you do from today? Like, other than teaching play, what else can you do? Well, two way communication. You know, it depends on how you define two way communication, first of all. But all this always starts with you. It starts from you trying to teach communication. And how do you do that? Is to give the child the language they're supposed to say. They're supposed to say at the certain point, at a certain time and a certain context, you know, just telling them exactly what to say instead of asking them questions or, you know, like. Or trying to teach them. All right? Because how children pick up language or how people pick up language is that they, they're inside of a certain context and they're interested in it. They see what languages are involved and then they learn those words after repetitions, right? So you need to remember that because that is exactly why in the previous video we talked about how a child can learn ABC 1, 2, 3, count, whatever from just learning from videos, and yet they cannot pick up the language that we're speaking to them every day. And that's because most of the time you are asking questions when you're talking to kids, right? And you're creating some sort of communication patterns that the child thinks that, oh, when mom or dad asks a question, and then I'll start talking, right? Or when mom says, what do you say? And then I say, I want cookie and that's it. So therefore, let's skip. That starts from you. How about you try to give the language as freely, selflessly as possible. Teach them, okay? At this situation, you have to say this word or that word or this phrase or whatever, and it will be much easier for the child to pick up. And that's when they start to pick up different language functions. Because when a certain thing comes up, right, Maybe they fall down. Instead of saying, are you okay? Knowing that they cannot answer, maybe you say, ouch, you fell down, or ouch, Stephen, fell down, whatever, right? That gives context about, like, what they're doing and you're describing what they're. What's happening, right? This is what we call parallel talk. It's a name for this, right? When something happens, you talk about it, right? So you have to remember that. Because when you can start commenting and talking about things that are happening to a child that they care about and they like and stuff, and therefore you have to play, you have to teach play, right? Then slowly they will catch on different functions. Oh, at certain times I ask questions. At certain times I answer questions. At certain times I comment about this. At certain times I should, like, ask for commission right now. Certain times, yes, there, there are times for requesting. And also when something goes wrong, like there's something wrong with the situation, I can use language to mitigate, to tell someone else, hey, man, you're supposed to do this, you're not supposed to do that. And then it builds a repertoire of language functions, not only just words and sentences. It needs to be you just giving selflessly and teaching the kid to that they need to learn. At that point, they might not be able to say it right away because most parents and therapists, teachers, whatever, we're very short sighted. We want the kid to talk now, right? So therefore, we use tactics that will like, make them, like, we prompt them too much. We create situations where, oh, because you want this, you can have it, but we have to evolve away from it. That's the first step to get children to talk to us. Okay? If we keep on going like that, we only get I want robots, right? We only get I want, I want this, I want that, I want whatever. You know, like, communication isn't only about getting what you want, okay? Communication is about enjoying and, you know, telling people how you feel, right? So let's go there and start telling our children how we feel and how we think in certain situations and keep the language as simple as we can so that they can absorb it. Okay? That's all I wanted to say in this video. If you haven't, you should go to agents of Speech.com combining class. It's a free 30 minute private class from me teaching you how to get your child to speak in sentences. All right? So I'll see you there. And that's it for today. Thank you. Bye Bye.