Children who Copy Phrases from Videos but Don't Talk | https://www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

Hey, everyone. Tonight we're going to talk about when children can repeat after you. Like, they can not repeat after you, but, you know, they learn something from a movie, a video, something, a music video or anything. But they don't really repeat after you, or they don't really talk to you, for that matter. Okay, so why are we talking about this? And the reason is because recently we've got like a whole. I sent out an email asking parents, oh, please tell me about your kid. And then the whole inbox was flooded by all of you guys. So I'm very grateful for that. And one of them, One of the comments that I looked at today, one of the emails that I looked at today, the mom said that she caught her son saying blackpink in your area. You know, that. You know Black Pink, the K pop girl group. Right. But the thing is, the kid isn't talking yet, but the fact is he said a phrase from a music video from Korea, which is crazy. Okay, so why is it that this happened? And I'm telling you that this is more common than ever because in my first job. Sorry, fogging up a little bit. In my first job as an ABA therapist, there's a lot of these things happening all the time. And especially, especially, like, if they're into something. And one of the kids back then, very long time ago, they were into Thomas, right? He wasn't talking to anyone, but at the same time, he knew all the names of all the trains. You know, like, so Thomas. And the red one's Percy or something? No, no, the red one is not Percy. I. I forgot. Okay. Red one is James, and then the green one is Percy. So they know all of these names, all of these people know how to sing the Thomas song, but yet they don't know how to talk. Right? So I wrote in the comments about what discussion points we have. So the number one thing is the question is why speech delayed children like to copy funny phrases from videos, okay? So the number one reason is that they have very particular interests, all right? And when we're talking about speech delayed children, we might be referring to children who are also on the autism spectrum. Okay? So these individuals, I would say children, they love certain things and they will only watch certain videos. So when they watch these videos, they will. They will pretty much memorize everything. Okay? That is inside of that thing, all right? And this is actually very common for a lot of children and people, autistic adults, and we call it scripting, Right? These type of scripting activities do happen in children who are not on the spectrum as well. And the reason is because they are so comfortable. So comfortable with listening to certain videos and songs. It gives them a sense of comfort. Yeah, Number one. Number two is that they've developed very. A very. Develop a very high interest in that topic. Right? So the more they hear it, the better they will remember it. Okay, so when. When do they suddenly do that? And it's the same as, like, you suddenly remembering a song that you know and you start singing it. It's the same thing. Okay, so for children, it's kind of the same thing. And for you, right, you must. I don't know for. Or at least for me, right. There are some songs that I don't speak the language for. Like, maybe in Japanese, Korean, whatever, Indonesian. But at the same time, we know a few, like, phrases from the song. Okay, so this is not something exclusive to speechless children and children or people on the spectrum. It's for everyone. Okay, but it really dials down to how many times have they heard that thing, that phrase. And number two are if they find it funny, amusing, or anything at all. All right, so hopefully I have answered why they actually do it. Because we all do it. All right? We all do it. As long as we find something interesting, we will do it. Okay? It might be a song that we really like, but we don't speak the language, but we still sing. We're still able to sing some of the song. Not accurately or natively, but at least we know that it's around, like we're getting it nearly correct. Okay, so if you have any questions right now, you can put them in the comments section. Number two is I wrote. What's language modeling? Okay, so all of this kind of like scripting, repeating language or phrases, song lyrics, these are actually from a language model, right? That someone modeled it to them. So who modeled it to the kid? The videos. Right. YouTube, TV. These things model language to the child. Okay, and to those who are always saying, like, being. I actually shot a video recently talking about how I don't like people blaming the parents for, like, not talking to the kids and giving them up. TV and whatnot. TV is actually a source of language model. Like, it's an input. Okay? For better or worse, it's still an input. All right? So language would not have become a thing like you, and I wouldn't have learned language. You wouldn't be able to listen to what I'm saying right now without someone modeling that language to you, Meaning you're being exposed to that language. Okay? So being exposed To a certain language will help a child acquire that language. Anyone, okay. Anyone with a good amount of exposure will learn certain things about a language. Not 100%. Okay, but. But still. Okay, so why did a model take that model? Why would some, like a child take that model? Well, there's two key factors. Number one is that how many times, how many times, how much frequency? Right. How many times have they heard that word or phrase before? Okay, so there is a study. There's loads of studies saying, oh, if. If you give a child a model, and as we always say on this channel, there are like. Like one fast. A fast way and a slow way. Right. The slow way is that you keep on talking. And what we call indirect language facilitation is like, we're talking, but then we're not asking the child to repeat back. Right. Also, the. The most happy and relaxed way anyone can learn language. By the way, that's actually language modeling too. But you're not asking him to directly say it back. Right? So that kind of, like a lot of studies say, oh, a child needs around like 300 times to hear a word, and then they will start using that word themselves. Okay, hear it 300 times, and then they will be able to use it. Well, it's this research, obviously, backed by data, and I can find it if you want it. You can ask me on private message or email or anything. This is a long time ago, man. This is like in masters that I learned about this. So anyways, given that you need a certain amount of exposure to learn a certain word and to use it correctly and say it correctly, it's true for me, at least in a different language, that I need to listen to certain number of words many, many times in order to be able to use it. Okay, so the first point of language modeling is that the frequency needs to be high. So back to that kid. Listen to who suddenly said blackpink in your area. I mean, the mother must have been listening to blackpink for quite some time. Maybe the maid was listening to a lot of it. Okay. And for the uninitiated, this phrase happens, like, in 80% of their songs. Okay. So, you know, like the. The frequency is a lot. And parents always ask me, right? Oh, how many. How much time, how many times do I need to do this at home? As much as possible. Okay. As much as you can give a language model to your child as possible. Okay. So that's the criteria. Number one for child to actually follow a language model. Number two is it needs to be at a level, like a difficulty level that, you know, he can at least comprehend. All right, let's say that you try to learn a different language. You, a full grown adult who understands, who has at least like one or two languages that you can speak, right? And suddenly you decide to learn Russian, but somehow you decide to, to watch a Russian movie without subtitles. How's it going to work out? It's going to go real bad, right? So that kind of language model is too hard, too difficult for anyone to follow or to like, to understand, all right? And that wouldn't really be that helpful for a child to pick up a language. So if you think about it, if you're right now, I'm always talking about this in our channel, on the, on Facebook, on our Facebook group, is that if you're narrating, if you're talking, you're describing different types of, you know, in paragraphs and sentences and questions. You're, you're modeling that kind of, that kind of talk, that kind of language to your child. So for instance, if you always ask questions, you are not teaching them to answer it, you're just teaching them to, that there's something called a question. That's why they just repeat your question, right? And for like, you know, long time ago, like a year ago, a child that I was teaching did something so typical in front of the mom that, you know, we could talk about it, which was very good, by the way. So what happened was that the kid fell down and then, excuse me, looked at her, his leg, and he said, are you okay? So he was asking himself, are you okay? He was taking the model of the, of the mom who would always say, are you okay? Does it hurt? So he said those two things, right, as a question. And because of that, he wasn't answering the question of are you okay? He thought that are you okay? Meant that whenever he fell down, he had to say it or something, right? So therefore, you need to be very careful about what kind of, what kind of model you're giving, okay? And a lot of times children love to imitate us talking on the phone, talking to like people on the street, talking to people who send, what's that called? Send those packages over now that we're always at home, right? And it's not only like that, right? You have to think about why do they think it's interesting, okay, so this is point number three. Why doesn't she, or like your child, he or she copy you? Like, why does he take your language model, the stuff that you want so badly, okay? So the problem is. The problem is, number one, what is your objective? What is your aim of giving your language model all the time? Okay, so if. Let me give you an example, all right? As an adult, if you go inside of a mall, you go inside the. Of. What's that called? You go inside of a shop, and instantly the salesperson, like, pops up and then comes up to you and tries to sell you something, right? How would you feel? I think it wouldn't be that great, right? It's that they're being. They want to push the agenda on you. They want to make money off you. Therefore, you feel. You don't feel that good, right? And what's the best shop you've been to where you don't feel any pressure and you want to spend money and you actually enjoy your time there, right? So that, for me, at the very least, I would think is actually Starbucks, right? No one actually comes up to me to sell me. I need to go up to them, you know, I need to ask them stuff. And the whole situation is very relaxed, okay? So why am I making this example? And it's the same, okay? It's human psychology. So whenever you are needy or you have an agenda, you have something you want to do to push it on someone, the other person isn't going to like it very much, right? First of all, you're being selfish. Second of all, they can smell what you want to do, okay? So a lot of times when I talk about, oh, don't have that therapy tone. Don't have that, you know, that teaching tone when talking to children, okay? It's exactly the reason why. Exactly. Reason why you don't want to do that. You don't want to make them know that you're trying to teach them and force them to talk. And that is how a lot of children actually cannot. That makes a lot of children turned off and don't want to talk to us anymore, okay? And it's not because it's your fault or anything. It's just that it's, like, counterintuitive, you know, the more you want to push your child to talk and push them to learn and help them catch up with your best intentions in mind, the more the children can feel it from you. It's like that person at the mall popping up the sales and asking you, oh, what are you looking for? You want to buy this? It's kind of like that. This is how I feel, at least. But the thing is, it's not like you're doing something evil or you're up to no good. It's just that human nature, we don't like that kind of stuff. Right. So before we go on to the last point, Jackie says my son copies Coco Melon. Oh man. I have Cocomelon subscribed on my YouTube account for some reason and I think it's because of the kids. Okay, that's coming from me. Okay. But anyways, she said I follow one of her tips to encourage him to answer yes or no. And it works. Okay, cool. So I think just for initiated the yes or no questions here, here the tips I gave a few so I cannot really remember. Okay, so if you want to know, just comment before the live. I'll talk about that. All right. The last thing I want to talk about, okay, the last thing I want to talk about is how to get a two way communication going. All right, so I did tell you guys about like, okay, two way communication sometimes is like the ultimate goal, right? For parents. Oh, I want to have like a good conversation with my speech delayed kid. I mean I want them to catch up so that I can be, you know, be the buddy. You know, some, some parents really take their time and tell me what they really want and their children. Okay, but how do you define a two way conversation? Right? Is it like you talk, she talks back and then you talk back, you know, sharing ideas, that's two way communication. Or is it that one of the parents said, oh, as long as they tell me they can answer my question, that's two way communication already. All right. I think a lot of the parents, what they mean is that they want the children to come up to the mom, tell them something, describe something, chit chat a little, answer some questions, comment on some stuff together, laugh at something together. That's two way communication. That's what I'm thinking about. There's no book, there's no definition for that, sadly written somewhere. And we both know two way communication is like quality time with the kid talking. Right? So how do we get that? So first of all, you have to remember what we just talked about, right? Is that what you are modeling will become their communication pattern. Okay, so what I mean is if you're always asking questions, they will become passive. They will wait until you ask a question and then talk. Right? Okay. And then if you're only asking questions, you're not modeling the answer, therefore they might just copy your questions. So what do I suppose you should do is that whenever you ask a question by accident, you shouldn't even be asking questions in the beginning. Is that you answer it for them, right? I've talked about this many times, especially in the micro course. You can go agentsofspeech.com micro some parents are having great, great, great, great results without like just stopping the questions. Just that alone has made their time together much more, you know, much better. You know, there's not much stress going on anymore. Okay? So how you want to get a two way communication is a few things. First of all, you need to have something that your child enjoys and that you can join in to what they're doing already, okay? And then when you're doing that, you're selflessly exploring, commenting, giving language model about all the things that they care about, okay? And they will tell you back if they know, okay? A lot of parents say, oh, my kid is so lazy. You know, he knows it, but he just doesn't want to say it. But the thing is, no children or no human beings are lazy for talking. To be honest. It's just that now, number one, maybe it doesn't make sense. Number two is that there is a reason really to talk, right? So the reason you can control is to find something that is hat is like fun between you and the kids. Play together, right? If it's like the kid who loves Thomas trains, get a Thomas train track, get a Thomas comic book or you know, whatever, do something that amuses the kid. You can get rid of the reason first. Number two, doesn't make sense. You have to give the correct language model, right? Show them how a two way conversation works. Okay? So it might be that you're pretending to talk with a toy and then you're modeling how it works, how a conversation works, right? So that is why they can model how a Peppa Pig talks. Like, right? They can model, you know, children on the spectrum or you know, just children who are speech delayed, they have a British accent. They have a British accent from Peppa Pig. And to reply questions, they oink, right? I remember one time, you know, like a kid came to me holding a Peppa Pig doll and she's like, ah, really is a guy, by the way, it's a boy. And he was like, I love Peppa Pig. And then I asked him something and he oinked at me. So, you know, like that's the language modeling, right? You get more and more like it's you. The language that you use is what you hear and what you experience around you, okay? Which includes accent as well, right? It also includes what kind of response you give. Okay? So with that said, hopefully you guys do understand What I'm trying to say here, okay. Over these lives, I tend to talk about, like, what parents have been asking me, and most of the answers are already inside the micro course. Okay? It's very short. Okay. Every video is, like, less than eight minutes. I think the longest one is, like, 10. And we have, like, real life examples of parents who have been using those tips in a video format. You can watch it and you can see other parents doing it in live action. And actually, it's pretty cool. Okay, so let's go through again what I was saying today as a recap. And then that's pretty much it. And before we leave, you can put some questions down below so I can answer them. If not, then I'll be leaving and continue to enjoy my night. Okay, so number one. All right. Why speech delay? Children like to copy funny phrases and videos. The reason is because there's a recap, by the way, is because, you know, they find it amusing and they hear it a lot of times, okay? And then because of these two factors, they start to copy those funny phrases. Okay, Number two, what's language modeling? Modeling means that the stuff that they hear a lot, okay, the stuff that is presented to them, and they will start to imitate those models. And by the way, you know, like, how if you watch too much rap videos when, like, when I was a teenager, my friends would watch too much rap videos. They start to speak like they're from. Like, they're from America and start to talk like a black man. Yo, that's actually language modeling too, right? So that's what happens. Okay, number three, when why doesn't, like, your child copy you? And it's because your intention. What's your intention? Like, are you really just selflessly giving language modeling or are you, like, trying to get them to talk to you with questions? If you always, like, pamper them down with questions and stuff, Leave the bad taste in the relationship, Even if they really, really adore and love you, sometimes it's just too much, man. So you need to remember what the. What your goal is. Okay? There's always. Remember if you're giving an indirect language model, all right? Then you should stick to doing that, okay? Because even a kid who doesn't talk with words says blackpink in the area, right? That's one. Like, if you count blackpink as two words. One, two, three, four. Like, it's more than four words, man. So you think about that. There isn't a reason why your child, like, isn't talking, you can make it happen. Just copy what they're doing, talk about something amusing and a lot of times. Okay, so how do you get the two way communication? Well, first of all, you have to solve two issues. Number one, if they adore they like that situ, like that thing that you're talking about, you know, go with their what they like. Right. Number two, talk, you know, at their level, at the level and model as many interactions as you can using that. Okay. That's that if you do that, it's a matter of time. Okay. And it's not going to be like that. It's impossible to do that. Okay. That's why we do it separately. We have structured tasks like you know, sitting them down with some rewards and teaching them some stuff. Okay. And sometimes it's gestures, sometimes it's words, sometimes whatever. Right. But we also have the slow way, which is language modeling. You keep on modeling language indirectly hoping they will pick it up just like how they picked up, you know, like nursery rhymes or whatever. Right. So with that said, that's all I have for tonight. Thank you all for tuning in. There's more and more people actually watching these lives, which I'm pretty happy about. But if you haven't, you really have to check out agents of speech micro and yeah, please check it out there. We do talk a lot about like it gets you up to speed. Right. Without me repeating myself all the time. Right. And before we leave, lids, Lydia says this is exactly what I'm facing now with my twin. I'm going to give us a try. Yeah, give it a try. Give it a try. All right. You're very welcome for the clarification. I, I didn't know if there was a mix up. You know, sometimes, how to say sometimes parents go to therapy and then the therapist because they're too busy. You know, like when you work in a clinic, especially one that is private, pay. Right. Clients come left and right and you don't have time, you know, you don't have time to explain this fully like I'm doing right here. So there's a lot of misconception and like things that are not well explained, I think. Right. So Jackie asks, is it okay to pretend play all the time or just do this just to. Yeah, it's okay to play pretend all the time. I don't know what you mean by all the time, but you know, you can be as very natural just as long as you're talking to provide a language model. Okay. You're not talking to make them talk. Okay. So when you say I to encourage him to talk. That's not really the. Like, there's a time for it. You don't want 100% to encourage him to talk because talking is hard. If talking was easy for a kid, they've been doing it already and you can't shut them up. Like, typically children, they just go, blah, blah, blah. And you can't just. You cannot stop them. Right? But the thing is, speech delayed children, they find it difficult. That's why, you know, they don't do it all the time. So I would say that you shouldn't encourage him to talk. It should be encouraging them to learn new stuff. Right? Put that as the number one priority. There is a time to encourage them to talk, which is structured tasks, what I think would work the best. But this is another topic. Okay, that's all. And Deborah, long time no see. Deborah. Yeah. Thank you for tuning in. So that's all for tonight. Thank you everyone for staying up late. It's 9pm here in Jakarta. Know what time it is? Maybe it's in the morning for the people in the USA and midnight maybe in uk, I would think. I'm not sure. Okay, so thank you. I will talk to you guys soon. Actually next week, Monday.