Do Speech Delayed Children Catch Up? | www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

Hey. Hello. Welcome to this Monday Live. Let me know if you can hear me clearly. I'm here to answer your questions. And for every Monday, there's always a theme. Okay. And today I'm inspired by a consulting call that I did in the morning, which is we were talking about a kid who was like two and a half years old who doesn't know how to speak yet. And the parents were basically telling me what they should do while they're asking me what they should do in order to help their kids, help their child start to talk. Right. So today I'm going to tell you the most important thing that I think a lot of parents loves, loves to actually ask me. And it's one of the things that a lot of parents just have in their mind and which is, do children of speech delay or language delay or whatever, do they catch up? Right. And this is something that I struggled with when I just started as a therapist to answer because it's very hard. I mean, it's very difficult to know whether a child will or will not catch up. All right, so let's just talk about the, how it happens in my mind and how I try to tell parents about this thing. All right. So number one thing is that I'm going to start saying I'm going to start thinking about how severe the child is. Okay. If your child is like totally non verbal at around 5, then you know, there's a high chance that it's going to take much longer to catch up. And if you didn't know who I had interview with one of my students who is 30 years old. Right. And hey, Lena. Hey, Lena, how are you? Yeah, and then we talked about how she caught up until now. Right. And we also have other students who are around like 13, 14 who are actually doing pretty operating at a pretty similar level for language. Right. So do children actually catch up? We need to look at the severity. Right. How old are they? Are they talking? How much are they talking? And therefore you will think about, okay, are they going to catch up or not? Okay. And the thing is, if there is a label about autism disorder, Autism spectrum disorder, Right. You need to have expectation that the road, the path will be different. Okay. It's not about catching up or not. It's just that is there a way to make them cope with, you know, living on their own, having career, having, you know, a romantic relationship, these kind of things down the line? It's not just about like speech and language milestones. Right. It's much more than what I'm doing. As a. As a therapist. Right? So you have to think about that. Okay. Severity, what it is. Okay? Is it like, is there speech. Sorry, Is that autism spectrum disorder? Is there, like, speech disorders like apraxia of speech? And in the Facebook group and also on my page, Also on the YouTube, actually, I do talk about some pages that are children who used to be children who are adults now who have apraxia of speech, and now they still are struggling and trying to combat and cope with about how to speak clearly because of apraxia. Okay? So there are a whole spectrum of people we're talking about. And if your child right now is around two or three, and he or she is already, like, speaking in two words or, like, even in words, you have a good chance. Okay, so let's talk about those population first. All right? At any time, please stop me if you have any questions. I know some parents are coming on who are in the micro course, and they have some questions for me. And I'm just gonna. If you say, hi, I'm gonna answer your question here, all right? Or else I'm just gonna keep on going. All right? And if you don't know what the micro course is, it's basically like a distilled version of all the advice I give parents that are happened. Useful. And I just put that. Put it inside, like, a little course so that, you know, I don't need to repeat myself 100 times. Right. Okay. So children who are around 2 to 3 and they haven't spoken yet, it really needs to. It boils down to, do we know their true ability? Right. Are you able to sit them down and make them, like, you know, say some words and test how much they can actually talk? Okay, so if the ability is around two to, like. Sorry, if their ability is around, like, one word, let's say that they can actually imitate a word like two to three years old. I think there is a good chance that, you know, the progress will be. There is a progress because you can actually teach something. Right? And this is what a lot of therapists will call dynamic assessment, Right? It's a crazy word. It means nothing to anyone, even myself. It just means that how teachable your child is. All right? If your child is teachable, it reacts well to a certain method, then you can think of that you can teach them anything. It's just a matter of time. You just don't know when. Okay, so there are some children that I know of are not receptive to, like, aba, no matter how much you try. Doesn't work apparently, which I only heard of it, I never tried. Okay. I've also seen children who have been doing the same goal over and over and over again for like, a few months or like, even a year. And obviously that means that the method doesn't work. Okay? So what do you do in that situation is that you try to find a better way. Okay? And if a therapist is stuck there and, you know, you get very unhappy about it, then go change something about it, right? Because then you're not going to catch up. Right? So that's that population for like two to three years old, right, who can actually say something. And in my mind, there are some different types of children. Okay? If we're talking about children who can actually talk, but their pronunciation is really bad, then you have to think about whether it's apraxia or, you know, just simple old speech sound disorders, which is articulation or, you know, or it might be like dysarthria or something, right? So dysarthria means like, there's a low muscle, there's a muscle weakness or something that prevents them from saying it correctly. All right? So in my opinion. Okay, if you want to quote me, I don't. Please don't. Because I cannot find anything. I've been searching on the Internet and searching through, you know, different papers about, like, what to say and how to answer the questions of parents over here. And from my experience and my opinion, Right, very heavily opinionated, is that apraxia speech will take much longer to actually see some results. Whereas very simple speech sound disorders where they cannot do some L sounds, some S sounds or whatever, those are quite easy, in my opinion. And dysartia, where there's a weakness in their mouth, then I think that it depends on how you treat it. Okay? Not everyone knows how to, like, identify and then treat it. Right? So at the end of the day, it really depends, as I always say. Okay, but there are more severe disorders. All right, so for instance, let's talk about children who are, you know, they don't know. They don't really know how to explain themselves. Maybe they're like three to four years old, and then they don't know how to explain themselves. They're talking really short. They can't really answer, like, why and how questions, those kind of, you know, question types, which requires them to think. Right. If we're talking about these children and, you know who you are when I say this, right, they can say like two or three words per sentence. But, you know, if you ask them a little more, they Kind of get stuck. Then these children actually, you know, in my experience, in my opinion, they actually do quite okay. Okay. Especially when they get to, like, primary school. They take a little more time and you still can see the difference. Right? Who has had a language delay? All right? Especially those who have a problem with what we call verbal reasoning. Okay. If you say, hey, why is the floor wet? If they cannot answer in a full sentence, then, you know, by the time they're primary school, you will still see that, you know, a little bit you can see, you know, you can tell in the classroom, you can tell, but it's not like their IQ has a problem. It's just that, you know, language development is like, from like 1 year old, like, I don't know, a few months. It's like a snowball, right? It keeps on rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. If you, if you start rolling at a, at a, at a later time, which is kind of late talker or whatever, or like a speech delay, then, you know, you will have, it will take some time longer for them to catch up. Okay? Yeah. So Nabil says, yes, my daughter cannot answer health questions. Yeah. So, you know, you're gonna, I'm telling you to expect that to roll over into primary school sometimes, right? And do you have to be worried? Yes and no. I mean, sometimes you will have to, you will have to take it into your own hands and try to teach at home as many, as much verbal reasoning as you want to. And we do this a lot in speech therapy with, like, board games because it's fun and it requires them to think and stuff, right? So that's something you, you can think about. All right? So, yeah, so when parents ask me, are they going to catch up, like, are they going to get better? Of course they're going to get better. But the better way to think about it is, is there, you know, it's going to be a long fight anyways, right? It's going to be a long fight anyways. We're not just talking about getting, you know, correcting some, some speech sounds. We're talking about getting them to speak much longer and express themselves to the best of the extent that they can. Right? So that means you're going to expect it to be a long. It's going to be a long fight, right? It's like you trying to live in a different society, like, different, like country and learn a new language. You're not going to expect yourself to be fluent in like a year, right? You're not going to expect yourself to be, to be Able to, like, write in like, two years time and go to university in three times, it's impossible. Okay? So think about it in that way, all right? Even for yourself, you have to change, right? You have to learn something new. It's going to take some time. And especially for the children who are, like, delayed or disordered or whatever the thing is, right, whatever the label is, they already have had a problem with learning this type of language. Rules of language, grammar, syntax, whatever sounds, then you need to expect that it's going to be a longer run. Most of the time. If we're talking about disorders, right, like, what's that called, autism, you know, adhd, these type. It's more about coping, as I said before. Okay? So that pretty much sums up how I usually tell parents during, like a clinic, they come to me, we did an assessment, and then I'm like, oh, yeah, your son is like this. He can say this, he can do that. He cannot do this, he cannot do that. And then the mom asks, okay, is there a chance that he's going to be, like, better or normal? Well, if it's just like, a few sounds that are missing, of course it's going to be normal. What are you on about? Right, or we shouldn't say normal. Like typical. Okay, Typically developing. Are they going to catch up to that? To the typical developing curve? Right, yeah, of course. If you're talking about, like, someone who can, like. Who can only say, like, one or two words, then, you know, you can expect it to, like, carry through into, like, it's going to carry through into primary school or maybe sometimes secondary. Okay? And we're talking about someone who cannot answer, like, how or why questions, problems with, like, verbal reasoning. It's gonna affect a lot. And the reason is here, okay? The reason is like this. In kindergarten, children are learning to read, okay? They're learning to read. All right? And how you need to learn to read is that you need to, first of all, understand the letters. Right? Understand letters. And then you also need to understand the words, or else you don't know that the word is equal to that letter. Right? You also need to know the sounds. So given that it's actually, you need to be able to, like, at least listen to a lot of things and able to speak. Okay? And then you'll be able to read. Maybe you don't need to speak. I don't know. There's a lot of arguments about that. Because, for instance, English is a very, you know, it's a very phonetic language, right? You read it and then the sound comes to your mind. Whereas like Chinese is just characters. Like there's different ways of saying it in different countries. So for instance, in like a Chinese character, you might have that word in Japanese and it sounds totally different or something similar to like when you say in Mandarin Chinese, right? So there are a lot of these kind of things that people do talk about. But what I'm saying today is that generally someone has to learn how to listen and talk before they actually read and write, you know, so in kindergarten you're learning how to read, okay. And in primary school you're, you're learning by reading, right? You're reading to learn, right? Because there's a lot, there's a lot less. Like one on one time, the classroom is bigger, you're using books a lot more. You're reading to learn something. Okay? You're not learning to read anymore. You're using reading as a tool to learn. Therefore, if your child cannot has been having a problem with like auditory comprehension, then think about like reading, it's going to be a little bit more difficult. Difficult for them, right? And if they cannot answer like how questions and why questions, then they can only get the literal meaning of a word. They cannot understand the inference. Okay. What I mean by inferences, like for instance, let me think it, right? So it's not like literally written down there, you know what I'm saying? Like, for instance, like the easiest way I like to explain what inferencing is, is for instance if they see a comic, not even like words, right? A comic, like a drawn comic. For instance, if they see like some like smoke coming up, like lines. If the kid knows that it's hot because, you know, because of the smoke coming up, that's inferencing the inference from the lines on the smoke, right? So that's something that's even more abstract when it's in words. Because they have to understand the word, they have to understand the literal meaning and then deeper meaning, which is like inferencing. And they're kind of guessing, right? So that's why they're gonna like fall behind a little bit even more. Because the kids who get it will learn even more by reading. Okay. And because your child has more problem like, like learning by reading, they're going to fall back a little more. But I'm not expert at this, by the way. For me, I like teaching children from, you know, 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6, like just 2 to 6, right? That's my favorite. Yeah. But once it goes to primary School things get quite difficult because, you know, children get emotional because they now can, like, they now they're smart. It's not like they're like, their IQ is much lower than, you know, or else they'd be in a special school, right? So they're smart enough to like, start to compare. They're like, oh, no, I cannot read or write as good as my, my classmates. I can't speak as well. So, you know, these kind of things. You also have to counsel them. Okay? It's not like from 2 to 6, they're very like, you can use something to get their attention, like a toy or something. But when they're in primary school, you have to like, tell them, oh, you're doing this because you're in speech therapy, because you want to talk better with your, with your classmates and stuff. So the social aspect is also very huge. Okay? So when you put this into perspective, there's a, you know, if your child is not catching up and as we call it, not being able to cope with the schoolwork, and then you will have to deal with a lot of the mental stuff. Right? Eline has a question. So question. Why does grandson struggle with words like for man, but says words like stoplight, Right? So it depends on a few things, actually. First of all, man might not be as frequent a word that he hears, if you understand what I mean. There's a frequency effect, what we call it, basically how many times you hear something, no matter how easy the word is, if he hasn't been hearing that word enough, which man, to be honest, for a child, I don't think a lot of children hear that word a lot. Right? But stoplight, if it always happens that he likes traffic lights or like, you know, you see it all the time out and about, then it's easier for him to actually absorb. All right, so for your grandson, evidently he's not a person with articulation problem because he can say the word stoplight. You're reporting to me that he can say it, meaning like I'm imagining that he can say it perfectly. Okay? So therefore my guess, my guesstimate. Guesstimation tells me that your grandson, like a lot of children out there and a lot of people like myself and you as well, is that the more you hear something, the easier it is for you to remember, right? And therefore he might miss the m in a man because he hasn't heard it enough. So I'm sure with enough repetition, he'll get it. And the other thing is, he might not even know what man Means like what man actually means. So that also doesn't help. The reason I say this is because when I'm trying to learn a word, if I don't know the meaning, then I'm just trying to just try to remember the whole thing. Right. Okay. Cool stuff. And it doesn't really help someone remember the sounds like breakdown sounds. Okay. Maybe your grandson already knows the word stop and light and therefore putting it together is easy as well. Okay. So I hope that answers your question. Just keep on giving as many times because man isn't a very functional word at like two. Okay. So it doesn't really matter as long as the functional words are fine. Right. So Lena says. Yeah, Che doesn't really. Can't really do wind fencing as well. Only memorizing some pics. And we'll give the same answers. Yeah, we're actually like, we're doing that right now, Leena with Jay. So Lena is actually my student. And anyways, so we've been trying to use like Mr. Bean pictures and then we're like, putting it into, like, real life, talking about some of the stuff that's been happening in her life and just guess why people are doing that or why people are acting that way. And that's also inferencing. That's high level stuff. And you'd be surprised. She actually knows a lot, Nina. It's just that she's. Sometimes she doesn't. She cannot. Like, she doesn't care enough, number one. Number two is that she cannot really understand the drawing, you know, because a lot of inferencing materials are in black and white and it's made in 1980s or something. So if I use something that she likes, then it's actually not bad. But her guesses are getting closer and closer, so I'm happy about that. So Brianna says my son is four and he struggles with the L sound. How can I help? Okay, so L is easy. So L. You need to check if he can, like, put the tongue up top like this. All right? The tongue needs to touch the boning, the bony, hard structure right behind the front teeth. Right. Right here. Okay. So L goes like. Like that. You see if he can do it. If he can't put the tongue up there, that means you have to train his tongue to go up first before teaching down. So if you're. Right now you're teaching, like the whole word. Like I'll say lollipop. Lollipop. That's too long for him. All right? And let me give you an example, because I'm Living in Indonesia. Right? So there's an R sound, which we call it trill. It goes like this, like that. But I cannot use it in a word because it's too fast for me, especially at the back. So I need to stop a little bit and then say it. Like, for instance, if I say I need to stop. Right? And it's not really accurate either. So for your child, you need to teach to put what we call tongue elevation at the. Behind the front teeth. That bony structure is called alveolar ridge. Okay. The name doesn't matter. Just do that. If you can't do that, try. Tell them to go left and right. Okay. Don't go outside. No one speaks like that. And this is not a speech tongue movement anyways, right? Ask him to go like from tip to tip. If you can slowly go up until it goes up to there, like. So it goes from like diagonal right to up. All right? And you want to. This is the whole thing. The whole thing is that you put like, what's that called? Material. Up top here and then. Or anything that's round and easy to hold, but up top here to hold the Cheerio. Up top and then go like that. Okay. And then after that, you can go. You can teach them, like, the easy L words. Like, like what? I can only think of Chinese words at this point. But you can start with like, the easy vowels. You can go la, li, lu, le, lo. Like that. Okay. Helps. I use it all the time. It works. Okay, so Sabrina says, my son is 22 months. He has yet to say mama or things I say every day. But we'll say eagles or play ball. He only has about 15 words, but can sing songs. Right? Okay, so he hasn't said mom yet, but he will say eagle or play ball. Right? And he only has about 15 words and kings. Oh, yeah, that's great. So if any. If people are of. Are inside this group or my page or channel, I mean, I've said this like millions of times, right? The reason why, if someone would type it, the answer here, that'd be really cool. That means I'm doing something right? I'm teaching people. So why this is happening. I'm not going to wait for an answer because it's going to take forever, right? So, Sabrina, the answer to your question is that your child doesn't understand why he has to say the words that he doesn't know why he has to say Mom. He doesn't know why he has to say the things that you say every day. The only thing that he Says is that are the things that entertain him, right? That make him happy, right? Maybe he likes eagles. Maybe he likes play ball. He's got 15 words. He can sing songs, right? So if he can sing songs, it means that there's nothing wrong with his speech, right? Because he can sing the words clearly. And therefore the only thing that you need to work on is how to communicate. And how you do that is pretty easy. You just get something he wants and then teach him the necessary, like the necessary words to say and. Or the necessary gestures to do. So to make it easier for both of us, you can check out my micro course, okay? It's agentsofspeech.com micro.com and go there and check it out in a nutshell. You just get something he wants in the beginning and then get him to, like, have his attention, tell him to imitate some sounds and you're off to the races because. And now he clicks. He understands that by speaking to you or copying your words, he gets what he wants faster. All right? There's a reason why I have to talk so long or I have to talk. All right? It's because I'm trying to tell you what to do, right? I'm trying to tell you something, okay? And I can't achieve that without talking, right? So your son doesn't understand that. He only thinks that, oh, he can get whatever he wants. So, Sabrina, my. My question to you as a lot of parents, as always, what does your son do whenever he wants something from you? Is it like pulling your hand? Is it like trying to shove something into your hand? Or is he pointing, right? So. Or does he just shout at you? Okay, that's something you have to bear in mind. You have to ask that question. If he hasn't used speech to tell you, then why is it that he's not using it? Is it too hard for him? Probably not, because he's singing songs so he just doesn't understand the interaction. Alrighty, good. So keep the questions coming. It's been quite cool. And for the parent who is in the micro course, she had a question and I think she's here right now. So I'm gonna go ahead and talk about it. She asked me, like, she didn't get it, so she sent me some videos about, like, teaching her son. But then the thing is, the son was like, crying and like, kept on running away and stuff. Right. Before I get to that, Sabrina has. Has replied. Anyways, so Sabrina says thank you. Someone was telling me he probably has ASD because he can sing Songs, but doesn't talk. He can also count to three and parts of abc. Yeah, maybe, maybe not. But doesn't matter. And no matter, excuse me, no matter what he has or like whatever the label is, right? Doesn't matter. As long as you have something. He likes that he has a reason to talk to you. Right now he doesn't have a reason to talk to you. So you need to find a reason, give him a reason, which is like a reward. Okay? Yeah. So this is like this kind of questions come up all the time, okay. And people and parents who go through the micro course will ask me. I try to make it as simple as possible, but sometimes it does get confusing. All right? Because each child is different. Okay? So the thing is, when you're doing something, make sure you're not always like, for example, if you're telling your child to do something and your child is not yet speaking to you, do not keep on drilling to tell him to speak. Like say whatever. Like say want, say I want, say give. Say mommy. If your child isn't talking, do not tell them to speak, all right? Because you're setting them up to fail. You keep on saying it, you don't get a response and you keep on repeating, your child's going to be pissed off. Okay? It happens to everyone. Happens to everyone. Okay? If I ask you a question that's super hard, you know, that's super hard. And I don't give any hints and I just keep on asking you and pestering you about it, then you're going to get pissed too. So don't do that. So instead make sure that they get a win out of it and it's all about breaking the old habits and patterns. Okay? So for instance, Sabrina, if you tell me what, how he does, like how what he does when he wants something, I will tell you exactly what is what. You know, what was the problem? Okay. Like he probably doesn't understand this and what you should do. Okay, Just if you're still watching, tell me. If not, I'm going to just go on to Tian or Tian, I don't know which one. So my daughter is 4 years old and not talking like conversation. He repeats what I say. What can I do? All right, so obviously your child understands what to imitate. She's like one level higher, right? And then what you should do for if she just keeps on repeating like crazy is you need an activity that you both like that she enjoys and she can come up to you and start using words to by herself, okay? And probably is that My guess, Tian, is that your. Your daughter is. Is always like, she thinks by. You know, she thinks by imitating you, she will get what she wants. Therefore, she will never start by herself. So your job is to. Is to teach her to start. All right? And I'm guessing. I'm guessing here, you can say. You can tell me that I'm wrong, okay? I'm guessing that your child will only imitate when you say, like, something like, what do you want? Or, like, if you give her a look or whatever, okay? So your job now is to teach her to say the word by herself. And how do you do that? Is you find an activity or something she wants, and then you give a smaller cue, like, less cue. Instead of imitating, you might, like, if she wants carrots, let's say she's very healthy. She wants carrots. Then you don't want to actually say, like. Say carrot. Like that. You can say carrot and then let her go on with it, okay? But the problem with that, actually, is that you cannot really totally eliminate the cue because she's always waiting for you to give the first sound. Okay? So what I sometimes do is that I keep on doing the same thing over and over again until I can eliminate the cue, okay? So for instance, if she likes playing swing, then I will keep on swinging her, like, doing the same action over and over, like, 10 times, right? So the first time I say swing, and then she swing good. And I let her go, and she comes back, I catch her, and then I say. And then she goes swing. And then. And then I say, good, sing swing. And I let her go, and she swings back, and then I catch her, and then the next cue would be much shorter. I'll go, like, if she goes swing, then I'll let her go, and she comes back. And then the last time, I would stop and see if she says it herself. All right? And then if she says swing, then you let her go. All right? So the thing is about right now, Tian, is that you have to teach her to use the words to start with you. And those words needs to be different, okay? Needs to be different. And it needs to be specific to the thing that you're doing, okay? And if you want her to have a conversation with you, and there needs to be a context, all right? And that's why I talk about, like, using board games, using, like, a routine and play so that both of you know what's happening next. And therefore, the only thing that happens, the only thing that she has to do is, is to say the Word to do it. Okay. And that's the step that you should do. Okay. And obviously afterwards then you can ask her some questions during the game and it will feel like it's a conversation but you will still need a lot of work on generalizing, which is not the topic of today anyways. Do that first because if I were to tell you exactly the steps to go, I will have to ask more questions and it's going to be a full on thing. All right. It's going to take a long time, but this is the thing you need to do first. All right? Get her to say it by herself without imitation. Okay. So Sabrina says he usually will come over to me and whine. Okay. Okay. And he looks more at what he wants but doesn't point. Okay, cool. So there like what I would do here is something I, I teach in the micro course is teach him to tap you when he does, like when he whines because it becomes a really strong routine that he whines and then you ask what he want and afterwards he whines even more and then you have to guess what he wants by, you know, look at what he looks and then, oh, you want this one, right? Say whatever. And he's like, he just keeps on whining. So obviously when he's whining it's impossible nearly to teach speech, right? Because, because he's already talking, he's doing. So teach him some gestures, right? If he's not pointing, then teach pointing. If, if you want you can teach some open palm which is also from the, the micro course. Oh man, I'm missing it here. Yeah, go there and take a look. Right. I think it's pretty, pretty good for a child. Your child really suits all the advice inside because he has no problems with speech. He sings songs, right. He can use words, just not words to you. So that's actually tailor made. And a lot of children are like that. But for your child because he just whines, don't teach speech during his whining. Don't tell him to talk because you're trying to talk over his whining which is virtually impossible. Right? It really is impossible. So when children, for me, when they're crying, I never. Or whining or crying, I never tell them to do a speech task or I never tell them to tell them to say something. Right. It's always behavior first. So if you can tell them that there's a better way than whining which is like by tapping you or pointing or putting the hand out that Is going to. It just makes sense, right? It's less effort for the same thing. No one would do more effort for the same thing. All right? Even a child, even an animal wouldn't do that. So if. As long as you show him how to do it, then it's fine. All right. All right. So Danya says, what's the best response to tantrums? Ignore it or tell them no and to stop. My son has three limited language receptive issues. Cool. So, Danya, the first step you should do whenever you have tantrums is to, like, think about why. All right? You need to know why your child is doing it. And ABA people call it, like, functional analysis. You know, it could be crazy, you know? And you know, speech therapy people say that, oh, they already communicating, which is all true, right? They're already communicating the tantrum. There must be a reason behind it. Find out why. All right, there are usually only like four, right? Number one, they want something from you. And they're kind of like just telling you by throwing a tantrum. Right? Number two is trying to escape from something. Yeah. And when it comes to escaping, if you tantrum and they can get away with it, they will just keep on doing it. Right? And wow, I can't remember on top of my head. Wait, let me think. So there's like getting the. Getting the. Getting what they want, right? Escaping, and then I don't remember, but anyways. So, Daniel, you have to know why. Can you tell me why that there's a tantrum? Because the response depends on why your child is throwing a tantrum. Okay, so for instance, for Tian, right? She says Zoe cries instead of talking or throws tantrum when she wants something. That's bingo, number one. So therefore, you should teach her a better way instead of throwing a tantrum, which is that doesn't involve talking, which is gestures or sign language or something that is that they can easily do at a heightened emotional state. Okay? So that's something you have to bear in mind. It depends on what the function is. Okay? But I have to tell you, Tien, like, if Zoe is. Is wanting something, but she cannot have it right now, then obviously you have to teach some. Some waiting and. Because today I was talking to a client of mine and she told me. I told her, okay, like, because the main problem with that child was speech, right? So we have to do a lot of, like, mundane speech, like doing like. Like the F sound like. Like that. But you have to do it. There's no way around it. Okay? And I told her that you Know, the motivation is level. The motivation level level is low. So we're going to use some food for rewards. Right? And, but then here's the thing. The parent said, oh, no, she's getting like, really like, she's throwing. She's having a meltdown, having a tantrum whenever you. We use food. So that's why we never use food. We just want her to sit down and we praise her and she does it. Although she's like, slacking off and whatever, she's still doing it. Right. And I'm like, dude, that's avoiding the problem. If the child melts down and cannot wait for food, then obviously the most logical thing is to address it, is to teach them to wait. Teach them that, you know, by finishing tasks, they will have the food, then you will have a very motivated person. Right. Especially for very mundane tasks. Right. And the reason why I teach a lot of this kind of stuff is because for parents, it's very difficult to keep it, like, fun engaging with the activity and, and do something at the same time. It's 1000% easier to teach someone like you, a parent by using rewards in a very structured way. Right? So that's why we use rewards. It's easier on you and easier on the kid. And we don't need to, like, create a crazy activity or keep it very natural, which is actually harder than keeping it structural. Right? Yeah. So Daniel says. Now she tells me the function. Right? The function. When he's told no, but not every time, but sometimes it's hard for him to stay seated. So when we're trying to get him to stay still, he starts to get upset. Right. Okay, cool. So therefore, when he gets into a tantrum because he wants something, he wants to get out and have. Have a walk around. And. And when he's told no. Okay, so basically it's two things. Number one is he's protesting. Whenever you say no, he goes, ah. He just explodes. Right? Or when he's. He's been sitting for too long, then he wants to get up. Okay, so what I would do is that you have to train him to, to accept a no. That's what I usually do. All right, so what I would do is something that I've explained to a parent and has worked. I'm not sure if you can do at home. All right, so it depends on what the thing, what the thing he's asking for. All right, so for instance, if you say no to, like, going somewhere, what I would say, what I do is I would say no, you can't and before he gets pissed off, I give him something, right? It might be a snack. It might be like video time. I usually do video time because it's more natural, you know, If I say no and I give him a snack, that's kind of like training a dog. I don't like to do that a lot. So what I would do usually is, like, if a kid asks me, oh, Mr. Minh, can I go somewhere? And obviously I know I can't do that, then I say, no. And then I instantly say, nice. Staying calm. Because you stay calm. Like, you don't need to say, like, such a long word. You just need to say, oh, that's calm. Thank you for being calm. Here, you can watch this instead. Okay? So you need to have, like, a fallback plan for him. If he gets pissed off when you say no, then, you know when you say no, like, the instant you say, oh, nice. Staying calm. Thank you. Here you go. You can watch something or you can eat something. You can drink something instead of. All right, we'll do it later. Sometimes it works. Actually, most of the time it works. Okay? So you cannot just know him and give him nothing. All right. It's kind of like. It's kind of like a protest, right, that someone has a demand with you, like an employee, I don't know, and he say, to raise my salary. And then you say no. Without any type of, like, negotiation, the situation is going to get worse. So for us, thankfully, children are easy. Just give them something. Like, if the thing you say no to is like, an A tier of something that he likes, give him something B. Like, for instance, if a kid really loves chocolate, you say no because you don't want them to cough. Then all you need to do. All you need to do is to just give him a B tier thing, which is. Might be. Honey, I guess that's a little more healthy, right? So the other situation, number two situation for Daniel here is that it's hard to get him to say stay seated, right? So what I would do is that he doesn't have a reason to stay seated. That's what I'm thinking. Okay. I've seen children who are said to be ADHD to sit, like, a whole hour with me. And the reason why is because we're playing and we're, like, watching something together. So whenever you can, you need to. When he's seated, you need to say, oh, good seating. Good sitting. Sorry, Good sitting. And you give him something like, ah, let's. Good sitting. Good boy. Let's watch something together. Oh, let's play this together. And you're always praising him about, like, sitting, good sitting, good sitting, good sitting, good sitting. And drill into his head. So he thinks that, oh, I'm a good boy and I'd like to sit. That's what we're trying to achieve, right? And we do that by praising and giving him, like, reinforcement, like rewards randomly. So he doesn't know when it's gonna happen. That's why he's gonna stay, like, sit it. Right? It's like buying a mark. Like, we call March 6th in Hong Kong like, you know, like a lottery ticket. So we don't know it's random. We don't know when we're gonna get it, but we're still gonna try. So it's kind of like gambling. And we want the child to want to gamble with us and therefore to sit down with us so that you know he wants to be seated. So you keep on praising him. Dana says he loves praise to be praised. That's great. Keep on praising him. Good sinning. Good boy. That's a good boy. But when he leaves, don't scold him. Do not scold him, okay? Don't say, oh, bad boy. Oh, you left your seat. You're not good boy anymore. Don't do that. Only praise. Because children, or humans in general don't respond well to criticism, right? They like being praised. And therefore, if he does something bad, just, like, ignore it. And then you try to give him something you can. Like, if he likes, for instance, the phone, you can go like, let me watch. And then when he hears a sound, he comes back to sit down. You say, good sitting, and you give him the said desired item. Okay. And it'll be much easier to keep him seated. Yes. Leena. She is a yeser. She is, in fact. Hello. Well, wait, I need to get your name right. Kausalya. Sorry, I don't know how to say your name. Anyways, let's go on to the next question. Facebook user. I don't know who that is. All right, so it's actually. I think this one is actually from Asha. Right? So Asha says, my son is three next month. You can say single words. However, he is still quite delayed. When you take a toy from him or someone has a toy he wants, he will tend to headbutt and throw his head back. Okay. Which is obviously dangerous. How do I go about getting him to stop these tantrums? He's not very good at following instructions. Great. So this thing is not something new. I've seen this Multiple times I've seen children headbutting other children. And, and this is a funny story. There's a kid who I was training to line up because every time he would line up, he would headbutt each of the people in front of him because he wants to be first. So he goes up again and then he goes back and he's pissed off. And the funny thing is, like, the other student who was like, participating in the lining up, he was happy after getting headbutted. He's like, hahaha, like that. So that's a good match. But anyways, let's talk about your son. Okay. So, Asha, I think. I think the problem is that he doesn't know how to. You need to be skillful about taking away a toy. All right, I talk about this in the course, not the micro one, but, you know, in the full one. But what I mean is, if you take a toy from a kid, what you should try to do is to do it out of his sight. Okay. Or at least distract him a little bit. Okay. And how I usually do it is like, if I don't have a distraction is like, if he's holding the phone like this, I would put his phone, like, let me go down a little bit like this, right? I'll put his phone on his chest and I would remove his fingers and I'll like, just put it away. And this weight actually works for some reason. I don't know why. You can try. All right, Put on his chest and then when he's still holding on it, remove his fingers slowly and just like slip it out. Okay, that works. Usually works 80% of the time. Okay. About the headbutting, then you can try some things. A lot of therapists will say, oh, you got to do some social stories. Tell them a story about, like, headbutting is bad, but given the fact that, you know, he cannot say he's saying single words, but he's quite delayed, right? So it might not work the first time. You might yet tell it every night or something. And he might still be like, whatever, I'm still going to headbutt everyone. The thing is, you need to stop him before headbutting because every time he hit butts, it tells him he can do it. And when. When the behavior is tolerated, like multiple times it comes in his mind, he will think, oh, I can do this. I can always do this. Doesn't matter, I'm going to do it anyways. So you always have to stop it. You have to intervene at that point and stop him from Headbutting, right? If he doesn't headbutt, then you can give him another toy or give him a snack. So my tip for you, Asha, is to keep a box of snacks with you, all right? So whenever you stop him from doing headbutting and his head back for one second that he's not, he's still calm, give him a reward, okay? It can be anything, to be honest, as long as he loves it. Okay? There's no. Because the thing is, he cannot take a note, right? If you take something away from him, it's just impossible. The thing is, all behaviors that are like tantrum, there's always precursors, right? For your child, Asha, the precursor is that he hits someone in the head. He feels that, and then he gets even more mad. I'm guessing he will go on the ground. He goes like, ah or something like that. So the first step is you should stop him from headbutting. That's the first step. And when you stop him instantly, give him another reward. Distract him. Okay? That's what you should do. All right? And this is actually. It's. Let me see. So she keeps on saying, like I should replies. He tends to take out his frustration on me. Anytime he's upset, he will headbutt me. And when I tell him no, then hen hugged me, am I encouraging the behavior by hugging him? Yes, you kind of are. And you know it in your. In, like, in deep in your heart, right? In the hearts of heart, you know that you're not supposed to, but at the same time, you're trying to soothe them, and you don't know what to do, right. I see this in a lot of parents and a lot of teachers as well. So what you should do in this situation is always keep him at arm's length, okay? Put your arm out. And if he comes to you, if he cannot, like, usually what kids do is they bully their moms a lot, right? If they cannot headbutt a kid or after they headbutt a kid and they get even more frustrated, they will run to you and, like, headbutt you and stuff. So what you should do is always put your hand on his chest, like here, because your hand is very long. He can't possibly headbutt you from that distance. Okay? So he's gonna try other things, right? He is going to. He's gonna try and, like, bite you or something. I don't know. Some kids do that. He's gonna try to bite you or, like, slap you or something. You just have to keep him at arm's length until he calms down, when he's okay, and then you can hug, all right? Or else what you're doing is that every time you're hugging him after the event, you're rewarding him. Okay. It's kind of like a, like a, like a, how to say, like a relationship that isn't like very. It's like a boyfriend girlfriend relationship that isn't very constructive. You know, I'm saying like after a fight and then they. They get all like lovey dovey again. It's not that great. Okay, so don't do that, right? Don't do that. Leave trying to stop the behavior. If you stop, can stop it. Reward him instantly with the external thing. Don't give him like a hug or something because he might do something to you. Okay? If he does come to you, keeping at arm's length, okay? Push him on the chest. All right. Hopefully this is something that will work, right, so. Oh, right, yeah, I remember. All right, cool. So you spoke to me on a consultation, right? He is not repeating my gestures, Getting very impatient, ends up crying. On the other hand, brushing it is much easier now. Great. So the thing is, you have to help him finish the gesture. You cannot possibly hope. You cannot possibly hope that he will just copy you, right? So for instance, if I am like facing you and I tell you to do like a very crazy dance move, right? I can't think of anyone anything right now. Okay, for instance, like it can do like do a wave, right? Like this, right? I've been practicing for a long time when I was a kid to do that. So if I tell you just copy me and you can't do it, and I keep on telling you to, it's impossible. All right? So what I would do if I were you is that for the gestures, I'll just take his hand and do it and do it once. Only. Only do it one time. You don't need him to like do it himself. For instance, if you want like we were talking about open, right? So which is also in the micro course, by the way. Shameless plug. But anyways, so you can go take his hand, go open, I got do it and then instantly say yes, nice doing open. Because you helped him do it already. Open the thing, give him something, close it and then try again. Keep on doing it, but only keep it to do it once. Only do it once. That one time includes the time that you help him with. All right? So there's no possible way that you will have a hard time with the gesture thing if you help him finish it. Okay? Help him finish it. It's going to take some time. You might be holding his hand for a very long time. And what I mean by a very long time, it might be like 20 times. You help him do the same action until he just suddenly starts to go like that. You go like, hallelujah, here you go. That's nice. Doing open. And after that, when he can do the gestures and then you can add the speech. So I'm very glad to hear that. Brushing teeth is much easier now given the tips that we were talking about last time. So great job. Hopefully you understand what I'm saying. So, Kausala, I'm so sorry, I'm butchering your name. Kausalya, Please tell me if you understand what I mean. Okay, take his hand and finish it for him. Okay, Go do that great stuff. Alrighty, so we're coming to the end of our little live here. It's eight more minutes. I'm gonna stay here, I'm gonna keep on talking. If we have questions, then I will answer them. All right? So don't be shy. Please put down your questions in the comment section. I see today a lot of you have. So I'm very happy about that. On the note of doing it only one time, right? You're very welcome. Anyways, on the note of doing it one time, I want you to imagine that no matter how many times you push your child and you've done it many times already, he's not going to do it anyways, right? So do it one time. Make it as stress free as possible for your child. No matter what kind of goal you're trying to do, always set your child to succeed, right? You have to think, if he hasn't been imitating you anyways, how in the world would you think that he would the next time if you don't help? And my former boss used to say, and he taught me a load of stuff, you know, he would say that, hey, you didn't even help him, right? I'm just repeating the same instruction over and over again without any help. And that's no cool. That's not cool at all. Because it's not, you know, my job is to help. And therapy at the root of it, therapy or teaching is to give, you know, select the right target to teach, which is within the grasp, right? Just enough for them to learn it and also give appropriate help. Okay? So if you talk about like for instance, let's talk about lifting weights or doing yoga. If all the time you start off With a handstand, no one's going to want to do yoga. You know, you got to start with the easy stuff, which the instructor can help with. Right. So for instance, like some stretches, some. I don't know the yoga terms. I don't do yoga. But like some, like, like there's an intermediate to hand stance, right. You do it on the wall. You do it like halfway and the structure helps you a little bit. That's what I mean. You can't tell your child to do a handstand. Sometimes saying a word, repeating a word is a handstand to the child. That's why they're so frustrated. That's why they're running away. That's why they're slapping you. Right. Think about that. So Tian says, when is your next live chat? This live chat is every Monday night. My time at 9pm I'm living in Indonesia. Right. And if you're in USA, that's in the morning. In the morning. I believe it's 9am EST, if I'm not wrong about the time zones. So, Rika. Hey, Rika. Long time no see. Rika says, sorry I'm late, maybe. No, no, no. Don't be sorry. My son is 3.5 years old and still unable to have conversations. Sometimes he repeats what we say. And he always saying, I want this or I want that. Cool. So what's your question? Tell me your question. But from what I see, Rika, this is a huge improvement to what we were talking about last time. So. Great. Tell me what your question is then. I'm. Yeah, I don't know what your question is. I guess that the question is you want him to start conversations. Yeah. There we go. A conversation. So we were talking about, like in this live. We were talking about a conversation. You need to find something he wants, like an activity that he likes. Right. And there's different types. Yeah. A lot of children here, a lot of parents here want the same thing. Right. And as same as Tian, who is from Tian. Tian. Because you're from Jamaica, I'm guessing. Are you Tian or Tian? Let me know. Anyways, so everyone wants to know about how to like encourage a conversation because a lot of children, if they go therapy, a lot of therapists teach them I want whatever I want, whatever. And I hate I want because I want. You're just teaching one thing in front of what they want. Right. So it doesn't. It's not really that functional. Right. So what's the difference between saying like, I'm coming up to you and saying Mama phone, right? And the difference between mama phone and mama I want phone, the difference isn't big. There's only I want. You made the whole situation the same thing. Like the whole situation even harder by adding I want, like two syllables. And they can't say like you want or daddy wants or like I eat or I drink. It's just I want, which is very useless. I don't like that. So anyways, how do you get him to like, start a conversation? Do silly things. Do as many silly things that you can. That makes them like, go like that, right? So what I mean, like if you have a currently, like if you're using a toy or you need to tell me what kind of toys that your child really likes. So for instance, if it's a car slide that my student likes, I would try to put different things that doesn't fit in a car slide. And then you can tell them different functions of language. Not just requesting, not just I want this, I want that. They need to learn different functions before they can use it in a conversation. All right. It's just as you know, if within the sport, you need to know how to shoot, you know how to pass, you need how to dribble. And right now your child, if he only knows how to like, request, he probably knows only knows how to shoot. So he doesn't know how to like, comment. He doesn't know how to tell you, ask for clarification. Doesn't know to tell you that you're wrong. These are different. These are different things that you need to do. So for me, what I would do for now is like find the toy that your child really likes and start doing really silly things with it. Right? Maybe like put a tissue paper down the car slide. You know, put a huge truck onto the car slide. And then you can teach him. Now, when he goes no, when he says no or he looks at you and pushes your hand away, you can teach like too big or it's wrong or you know, doesn't fit up to you, right? When you start teaching these words, it's going to make a lot of sense. So Rika says he loves numbers, writing and basket. I don't know what basket is. Right. But anyways, he loves numbers and writing. Then write the wrong thing, write it upside down, write it with the wrong hand, write it with different, like with the cap on. Like if you're using a whiteboard, put the cap on and start writing. Okay. And then you can teach them, oh, it's wrong. You have to open or like open First, Right. Or, I don't know. Rika, you're in Indonesia, right? So you can say bukadulu, right? So you can teach these things, make it as silly as possible. Okay. If it's a basket, I'm guessing your basket to put things, right. You can. Basket's hard. You can fill the basket to the brim with, like, useless stuff. Yeah. You can do a lot of. I don't know, it depends on how your child really pressed the wrong thing. It depends on your child plays with your stuff. Okay. But for numbers, you can put them in the wrong order. Right. You can put the numbers upside down. You can, like, if it's like the magnetic ones I'm talking about. Right. And you really have to think outside the box and make things fun and make things silly so that there is a chance for you to teach something other than requesting. Right? Oh, basketball. Right, Sorry. Yeah, basketball. All right. So maybe you can, like, if. If there's a. If you have a little hoop for him to, like, slam dunk and stuff, you can flip it up, you know, you can put a. Get a bigger ball that's too big to shoot. Yeah. Or a ball that's too small to shoot. Or you can make the ball deflated, like, not enough air. Right. That's something you can do. Or you can just keep on, like, getting his ball away from him, and he has to say, no, please don't. Right. So you have to. If you want your child to have a conversation with you, the first thing you need to do is to teach him, like, more ways, more functions of language. You cannot only stay at requesting, which is very hard, by the way. That's why I see a lot of kids who go to therapy, they just keep on saying, I want, I want, I want. And if they don't want and they're already playing, they don't talk. Right. So, Rika, I know you're in the course, so you can go check out the language facilitation part of the online course. It talks about how you need to. If you want your child to start talking, you need to give him the ammo, right? You want him to start shooting with words. You're giving them the ammo. So how you do it is you can do it very naturally by telling him what's happening when he's playing. Okay. Just say the words. All right? And if he likes it, then he will start talking for sure. All right? And that's probably all my opinions for now. But this skill is difficult, you know, like finding things to be Silly about. But the easy way, of course, the slow and easy way is to keep on talking and don't ask questions. To start describing everything at the level of your child's language. Okay. If, Rika, your child is speaking in, like, one or two words, which he is. He's saying, I want something. Then say everything. Describe everything that he's doing in two words and two word sentences. And slowly he'll pick up the vocab. Slowly he'll feel, oh, you're actually narrating and teaching him some words. He's going to use it. All right. But the fast way, of course, is to, like, disrupt his. His everyday life by, like, you know, putting forks upside down. You know, like, giving him a broken thing. Giving. Giving him, you know, the iPhone locked and, like, you know, maybe no battery or something. These things will trigger him to want to talk to you. Right? Or it's funny enough for him to want to comment and laugh and point. Right? That's the fast way. But it's hard. The slow way is to, like, keep on describing until one day he's like, oh, I get it now. I get all the words. I'm gonna start talking. All right? There's studies that say, like, you need to do it, like a thousand times for one word before he starts using it on his own. So don't give up, guys. So that's what I'm going to end this live with on this note, okay? It's always about repetition, but it needs to be the correct amount. Like, it needs to be the correct level. You can't just tell them to do a handstand from the beginning. You got to chop it up and make it as small and easy as possible that you can help with. Okay? So that's it. If you have any more questions, you can put it in the chat. Thank you, Rika, for, you know, taking my advice. And do try it. Remember, if you have any questions, we're always here. You can join the group and Facebook and if anyways, you can just comment and I'll reply you. Okay, so I'll see you next Monday. You can. Yeah. So, Dan, before we leave. Yeah. Didn't know that counted as conversation. Right? It starts like that. It starts like that. Okay. It starts like that, Daniel. All right. And for you guys, my wife is just whispering. She was saying to say Merry Christmas to you all because the next time we're gonna have this call, it will be over for Christmas. So Merry Christmas, guys, and have a great and happy family time at home, wherever you are. We've got a lot of people from all around the world here. And we'll start talking next time, okay? Goodbye.