Children Who are Stuck with “I want” Phrases

Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're talking about children who are stuck with I want phrases. So the purpose of I want is actually not very meaningful. Like, the purpose of that is actually just to get what the child wants. And usually what happens during therapy is that after the child masters a single word or imitation, the therapist or the parent tries to make the sentence longer to make it into like, I want something. But then the meaning of the whole thing hasn't changed, although the length of the sentence has increased. So what's the point of increasing the length when the meaning is the same? You're, you're making the, the whole communication more blunky and inefficient. So we have a whole other video about like, why I don't like I want phrases and so on. But anyways, so the purpose of the child saying I want is actually to get you to stop asking. Because most of the time how you got from non verbal to verbal was that you annoyed the hell out of your kid. Right. You annoy them so much that they just wanted to do something and to get you to shut up. Right. A lot of times that is the case. It might not be the case. And you let me know in the comments. And this video isn't for you, so you can watch something else. Right? But the, the whole thing about it is that when they, when they're saying I want something, it was a product of verbal imitation and they will keep on imitating until you give them what they want. So you see a lot of children on the spectrum if you say, oh, you talk first. I want whatever. They're so smart. They have like super eye contact that they're looking at how your mouth is moving. And they don't really know the, the meaning behind what they're requesting for. And there are some that they know very, very like a solid something that they know very well. For instance, like I want ice cream, I want cookie. These are very good. But this is like, I want to go out, I want to like, I want the bag or whatever that they don't really care about. It becomes a routine. And they think that it's, I want to go out for everything and I want the bag for everything. And it becomes more of a ritual they have to finish in order to do the next step, which is besides the point. Right. So why is this happening is because there are no other language functions available. All right, what do I mean by no other language functions? Well, the I want whatever is to imitate in Order to get something. And this is what we call requesting or manding. But the problem is that their word, the link to the, to the concept is not very stable. And therefore what's happening here is that if the word to the concept isn't stable, all they're leaning towards is just imitation, right? So they're using imitation for requesting, that's all. They don't know the word meaning. Okay, so what other language functions are that? There's like commenting, it's like, oh, that's a bird, right? That's like saying hello, like reading, saying bye, whatever, correcting, like manipulating your actions. Like mom, that's wrong, right? Mom, pick up that thing. Those are commands, instructions, asking questions, right? Oh, mom, what is that? Or answering questions, you might say, like Stephen, where is the whatever? And they're able to answer on top of the cabinet. All those are different language functions. And if your child is stuck, I want phrases, it means that they only care to request things from you. So therefore the next thing to tell you is that now we're talking about the symptom is that they have too much I want so therefore a lot of parents and, and therapists will think, okay, symptomatic approach, right? I'm going to think about how to, how to cure the symptom. I will teach them different sentences through the means of imitation. So what are you doing here? You're, you're not addressing the, the, the base level is that they don't have other language functions. So you want to teach those language functions. Now you're going to ask how do I do that? And I'm going to tell you right at the end of the video real quick, okay? But the next root cause is because there aren't enough vocabulary, especially for verbs. So what happens very quickly is that because the child doesn't have enough words in the bank, the next thing they can do, they can only do is to imitate whatever you say, okay? So become parrots. So there's like from level zero to level one, so to speak is from non verbal to single words, let's say, right? But the problem is that after they learn imitation to rely on that skill too much and therefore they didn't learn words to their exact meaning. And every time they don't know anything, they just look at your mouth and try to copy that. And therefore you don't have enough vocabs. So you might say, no, my, my kid has so many vocabs, he knows like the sun, the moon, you know, all the planets, you know, all the sea Animals, you know, dinosaurs even, you know, all the furniture, names, numbers, yada, yada, whatever. Right. But the problem is those aren't functional words, you know what I'm saying? So especially for verbs, if they don't have enough verbs, action words, it's going to be very difficult to construct sentences. Okay? And those words that they know through books, videos, whatever, posters even. The problem of that is that we don't really use those words in real life. Yeah. So having those words make them dictionary smart, but not like and able to use it in the real world. Okay? And that's the whole point of language, it is to be used for communication. So if you don't use language for communication, what are they using it for? Right. Either for self entertainment or that it becomes something for requesting. Okay? Of which when we're talking about children who are stuck at I want are usually children who do not have enough vocab that are functional, especially don't have enough verbs and therefore they will be stuck trying to imitate you. Okay, so how do we solve that? The first thing we do is to get rid of the I want because I want adds zero meaning to a phrase. So if I say phone, like if I talk to my family members, especially my wife, I wouldn't use a full on sentence. Could I please have the TV remote? I would say TV remote or sometimes I just point at it, you know, because I'm so lazy, I talk too much during my work. You get it? Just think about your communication between you and your spouse. Okay, so get rid of the I want because it's not effective, it's not efficient. Okay, then what you want to do is to start to sabotage the communication. What do I mean by that? So I've given this advice to many parents and it's been working because I use it because, you know, I can only tell you what, what's been working with, with us over the Internet and also offline sometimes is to do this, to sabotage a communication means if the child says peanut butter, they haven't told you exactly what they want you to do with the peanut butter. So you act like you don't understand, which is fair enough, and then you do something else. So for instance, they say peanut butter. Oh, peanut butter. Okay. And then you put it in the fridge and then obviously they're going to, they're going to say no. Right? So what do you mean? And then that's the way to teach them something of a longer sentence that has meaning for both words. So the reason why we talk longer, the reason Why I have to talk to you in such a long form instead of those short videos or, you know, through a meme or whatever, is because it requires a longer explanation and needs to be specific to get rid of the nuances, right? So if they say peanut butter and you put it in the fridge and you say no, and they say no, like they, they protest a little bit and go, ah, whatever. And say, oh, give peanut butter. And you give it to them and then they have the peanut butter and then they can't open it. And then they act, they give it back to you and you're like, what, what's going on? What's going on? And then you can ask, what do you want? But you have to give the solution as well. Oh, open peanut butter. What do you say? Open peanut butter. Oh, open. And then after that, you just give it to them and they can't reach it, right? And then what do you do? Scoop the peanut butter. Oh, okay, okay. Scoop. Scoop the peanut butter. And then because your hands can't go in, you need to get a spoon. So, so then you need to tell them to grab a spoon. Like they have to say, get a spoon or whatever. So you get what I mean, right? You need to sabotage a communication and don't let the context do its work. So because a lot of times mothers and fathers, grandparents especially, they take care of the child too much. Too much. As in, like, it's, it's a good thing. But what, what I mean is if your child is delayed, it's better to actually create a situation where every time they have to say something longer, every step, they require different tools, different verbs. Then you do that, it's going to make a lot more sense in terms of teaching a longer sentence that has meaning for all things. Right? So other than sabotaging, like daily communication, what else you have to do is to teach play routines. And we talk about this a lot. You can just go to our channel, click there, and there's a playlist about teaching play routines. Maybe I'll put it in the description box below as well for you to watch that. And a lot of parents will say, I want more of these. You got, you see, I've got more some toys here that I've moved back from, from the clinic. So the reason why I don't do each toys is because, number one, it takes very long. Number two, like, each kid is very different. Number three, I want you to learn the structure and the mentality behind it so you can do it on your own. You know, like you don't have to, like, 100% stick to that. Because what I want you to do is to understand the concept of I'm teaching you the fish, not giving you a fish. So that's pretty much it. If you want to learn more about what we do and so on. The first step is to go to agentsofspeech. Com Checklist to grab a free list of tools and toys we recommend you to get when you start home therapy. Okay, so I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.