Guiding Children to Ask Questions? | www.agentsofspeech.com

Hello, welcome. Welcome to another Monday live. We're talking about guiding your child to start asking questions to you. And I get this question quite often and as actual fact, I don't know. I can't speak for speech therapists in different countries, but at least for where I was trained at, getting a child to ask a question was never really a goal. But when I was working as an ABA therapist, I'm only talking from my experience. Okay, so you guys don't need to talk. Tell me. Oh, from my country, this, like, I can only talk from my experience and what I do, right? So in aba, from my first job, we did a lot of that, like asking questions, taking initiative, whatever. And asking a question by itself is a language function. And what is a language function? You might ask. So for instance, a lot of people who talk about, like mending, right, I want whatever, which is super common in terms of therapy. And that stuff is called requesting. In terms of language function, the function is to request for something or to ask for something from you, right? So asking a question is a different language function. There's a few functions about that. Number one, it might be asking for clarification, right. Number two is, might be opening up a different conversation, a different, different topic in terms of inside of a conversation. Right. And when you get to even higher language functions, it might be asking a question to. To keep a conversation going, number one. Number two is to. To clarify a thought that you have in your head, assumption that you might have. And this you might do with a higher level asd, person or child, teenager, to learn to ask questions. But let's talk about the very lowest level, which is getting a child to start asking like, oh, what is that? Who is that? Whatever, where is it? So these are the things that parents care about the most, right? The thing about this stuff is that you should always think about can the child understand this question. Excuse me, this question type first. All right, what are the question types out there? So the first one is what usually like number one, right. Number two is like, yes. No, is this a table? Like, whatever. And then, sorry, before that, I should be binary choices, like between two things, right? Is this orange or apple? And then they choose apple, right? They can choose between two choices, right? So and then after that you might have who questions and where questions and so on and so forth, like why and then how and then when, so on. So the very, the most important part is to get your child to answer more question types. All right? And these are called literal questions. Literal question types. All right. So whether Your child will ask or not is based on their motivation. Is based on the motivation. So if they are able to comprehend different types of questions, therefore they actually do understand that question, question, type. And it's a matter of time and motivation until they use it on you. Right. Use it in real life. So how do you make it? And a lot of parents don't like the word make children talk. Obviously in Asia, more people like it. But nowadays you got to be careful with the wording anyways. So in order to get them to ask questions, you have to create a scenario, all right? After you have already made sure that they can answer the questions receptively, meaning they understand what. Who. What category of who is, right? Like a bunch of people. Where is a bunch of places, right? Why is to understand the very basics of cause and effect, which does. There's a lot of people in linguistics that argue there is no cause and effect and there's a different word for it. But we're not getting into, like, the. The wordings, right? What we care about here in agents of speech is practical stuff. So, you know, if you're not offended by my wording, then, you know, keep on listening. So the thing about it is you have to create the scenario after they understand questions receptively. Okay? So how do you think about. Of creating communication opportunities where they must ask a question to get what they want? Okay. And that's not just like. It's not just requesting or manding for that matter, it might be asking for clarification, is that they must ask you for a certain info, because when you ask a question, it means there's a info lacking, right? There's something lacking, and they have to ask for you for it. Right? And this might be inside of a routine or a game that they must ask in order to, like, understand what's going on and continue with the task. Right? So one of the tasks that I. I learned, and this is from aba, not from speech therapy. So for that matter, creating communication opportunities is one of the best things that you can do for a kid. All right? And that's what we use should always do. And. And it's a long word for basically just creating a situation where it's a must that they communicate with you or else it's not as fun. I mean, you're not. You cannot force a kid to talk to you. You can't do that. It's imp. Impossible. But you can create a situation where they want to do it, all right? And it's beneficial economically that they do it. So how do you do it? Let's start with who. Okay, so if your child likes to label a bunch of stuff, what you can do is to keep on showing familiar people and faces, whether fictional or like real life people to him and just. Or her. And you can ask, who is this? Whatever. Who is this something? Who is this grandma? Who is this grandpa? Good. And then you show something that he or she doesn't know. And when that happens, it creates a disruption in the pattern. And then therefore they have to, they just shock and they're like, oh, I don't know that. So they don't know what to say. And then you can prompt, you can say, oh, can you ask me? Because I know and say, who is this? And you tell them to say, who is this? Oh, nice asking. This is whoever. Right. And we do this for a lot of things if we want the child to learn how to ask. Right. So you can do that for who? You can do that for even for where. If you show a bunch of pictures that are familiar and then one like just in between, you have some unfamiliar or like really hard places that they don't know, then you can prompt them to say, where is it? Right. Another one that is a little bit more natural is to, for instance, you can play a treasure hunt game and then you can put a bunch of things that are very obvious around, like, oh, let's get all the animals around the house, right around the room probably. And then you say, oh, let's go get it now. And then they start like hunting for stuff and they get all the animals. And then you show him, you tell them that, oh, we're still lacking. We're still, we still need the zebra or something. And then they keep on looking, they can't find it. And then they come up to you, they don't say anything. And they, they want to, like, they want to ask for the information, where is the zebra? And then you can prompt and say, you can ask me, where's the zebra? Or zebra, depending where you're from. Okay, so when, when you say, where is the zebra? And then after that he, he, after you prompt him to ask that question, then you can answer, oh, it's inside the cupboard, the white one. The white cupboard. And he gets it. And he, this one becomes like a positive feedback loop because he gets it. Oh, after I ask and then I will tell. And he doesn't need to guess, he doesn't need to try himself because asking is actually easier than like trying to find it. So, yeah, that's something that that can help. And something else that I teach a lot of to parents as well is to use like board games. And you know, like board games is very intuitive because like once the child knows how to play it and this is something that you have to remember whatever that you're trying to get your child, don't always think about how to get the child to speak, how to make them to talk, how to whatever. The most important part is to make them, is to show them what, where the fun is and why it's, it's a socially, you know, why, why do people play games? Because it's socially fun, you know, like it's, it's, it's a social interaction, right? So once you, you create that situation, that context and then you can use it to teach language, right? So you can also use this chance to do really stupid stuff inside of the board games. Once they understand the rules and they can ask, for instance, if they don't know what to do, then you can stop, right? Or you do something really stupid and you do the wrong thing and you can prompt them to ask, why did you do that? Right? Whose turn is it? Or where do I go? Right? These are very, very, very appropriate timings to ask questions. So you teach the child how to ask those when there is a gap in knowledge. So they have to answer some stuff, some like when they want to ask for more info. Right? So let's see. Kazi is asking something. My 4 year old has language and communication delay. Okay, but do you have other digital resources? You know, like Kazi, if you watch my videos, I always say, especially in the lives, live videos is that if you ask a question, please give a little bit more context because it's hard, man. You come to me and you say my computer is broken, please fix it. I don't know what's going on with the child. You haven't told me enough. So what's the language level of your kid? What does he do when he wants something from you? And you know, does he speak in like words, phrases, sentences? Does he get into a tantrum? Does he have any behavioral problems? You know, does he have all his speech sounds all cleared up? You know, does he speak well or is there like some errors in his speech? Right. These are the things you have to tell me instead of, you know, just something very generic and it's very hard to help you in that case. Right? So France, France, France, France says hello. New subscriber. Oh, welcome here. Thank you for information. You're welcome. But he only babbles when he speaks some words, apple colors. But now he don't say anymore. Okay. So. All right, so you have to see what he wants. Right. You can never, you know, you have to be selfless in this, in this case and think about what your child wants and needs from you. And then you use it to create communication opportunities. Right. As we like. I think this, I can speak for speech therapists internationally is that we always try to create a need for communication. So you need to think about how you can do that and not think about how to force it out of him and think about, like, what makes sense, why does he have to communicate and give him an easier way out. And that doesn't always mean speech. It might also mean gestures and stuff. Right. So you can go and think about that. Right. And we have a great online course for these type of questions. It's at agents of speech.com micro. Micro course. That's what I'm talking about. Like go to agentsofspeech.com go to courses, look for the micro course. And it basically just answers all the, all the things that a new mother would face with, with a child with speech delay. All right. Because I've been doing this for some time, I can basically recite the questions I get the most. So that's my response to it. Okay. All right, so thanks for the questions. Let me keep on going about question types and whatnot. So in terms of teaching children, I think sometimes parents get very caught up about. I think there are two camps of parents, right? One campus like, oh, I, I need my kid to catch up. I need them to do this, that, and whatever, X, Y and Z. And the other camp is like, oh, I don't want to make them talk. I accept them for what they are and yada, yada, yada. And I feel like there should be a balance and you shouldn't be go into like either extremes, you know, that's not healthy. I always like trying to go into extremes. And I feel like sometimes when I go live or my videos, I know there's loads of parents out there, like including the people like you watching that you would watch it in full and totally understand my context. But there are also a lot of them, which I find. And the DMs and email replies, right, Is that they. They as in the people who aren't watching right now, you know, that ask me questions. They may or may not understand the full context of what I mean. Right. So I don't want you to be like other extreme, you know, it's. It's good to be goal driven and say, oh, I need, I want my child to do this. But don't make that into like the motivation going into your child's interaction. Because if you do that, it wouldn't. Your child can feel it and they can sense it right away. Like you're trying to do something and teach. Oops, sorry, I ended it. My bad. Okay, so Kim says, do you have any advice regarding social pragmatic? Well, that's very, very, very vague. It's like saying, do you have any advice regarding, I don't know, like, like fixing a table. I don't know, like what do you want? Like what profile is your child? What problem in terms of social pragmatic is your child experiencing? Right. How good is his, his or language? Right. How would I know? Like it's very hard for me to tell you something that is universally true for everyone. I would doing. I'll be doing you a disservice now. This is a lot better. So my 6 year old son, nonverbal, cannot imitate anything. Why is it so difficult to start the speech? So you shouldn't go into it thinking about speech. If your child is non verbal, think of a way to like think of a way to create a different way for a child to get the message across and accept that first. So why is that important? Right? Maybe your child is already using these like gestures, sign language, pecs, whatever, picture exchange communication system. That's pecs. What a mouthful. But you get what I mean, right? So you need to have something that your child can use to talk to you already and then you can work on speech as a for. For to increase his base speech abilities. But you still have something to cover his communication needs, right? So he's non verbal. We don't know. You don't know anything about like why he's, he's non verbal. I don't know right now you. So the, the thing is, if he cannot imitate anything you have to think about, is it because he doesn't know how to imitate or is imitation too hard for him right now? Right. So you need to make that distinction. If it's too hard for him to imitate, then what you need to do is to create an alternative way, alternative way for him to communicate with you. Which is, which is always sign language. Right. And the other thing is, if it doesn't know how to imitate, then you have to teach them with a very structured way. So you tell me that is an ASD diagnosis. So usually what we do is that we like in the speech therapy side, we use a lot of pecs to, to show him something he wants. It's always motivation, right? For ASD children, there might be sensory issues, there might be like speech problems, but at the end of the day we don't know a child's how to say true ability, true ability if we don't get something that they want and try. So you have to find something that your child really is going to die for and start up maybe just trying some like very structured tasks like just verbal imitation. If verbal imitation doesn't work, try like just mouth shapes. If mouth shape doesn't work, then try like gestures or action imitation of touching your face and your mouth, whatever. If that doesn't work, then what you need to think about is can you use just pecs? Just giving you a card, right? Start with one. Okay. I know there aren't a lot of resources out there for parents teaching you about how to use pecs because it's like a thousand 2000 USD course for therapists like myself even. And that's pretty harsh. You know, this is crazy. So think about that. Like if you have a therapist talk to her or him about that matter. It's not always her, I'm a guy as well. Speech therapy. So Kim says simple tips. I have no idea. Right? If she's 2 years old, you shouldn't be thinking about, okay, she speaks on a two year old level, then your, your biggest, your biggest goal shouldn't be pragmatics. If she's talking at two level, two year old level, it should be getting her to catch up in terms of language first. Before you think about, oh, can she play without the children or whatever. Because two year old children, if their language, you know, two children, developmentally speaking, there's playing with parents, you know, like. So I would say your, your, your main focus should be getting her to play toys more often with you and increasing the, the her language level from there. Right? So it's okay. You don't need to apologize, Kim. I mean like, you know, it's just, there's a lot of parents out there who just slap something on me and just ask for advice. And I'd be doing you a disservice if I just give you very generic like, oh, go down to a level, oh, play more turn based on games or whatever. You know, like throw a ball and roll it to her and roll it back, whatever. Like that's not going to help you. You're going to hear it and you're like oh yeah, that sounds. That sounds fair, you know? But at the same time, you're like, is it gonna be directed at your scenario? Not really. Right. So someone asked non verbal, three year and a half, not using pecs. Not using pecs. I don't know. I haven't seen him in action. But usually if a child. Usually. Okay, don't get me wrong. I don't. I don't know. Okay. Usually speaking children who don't use pecs is because the things that are on the pecs are not desirable. All right? And you have to. And it's all about. It's all about. And I'm saying, like, from the bottom of my heart, pecs is about finding the thing that the child wants and then physically prompting. Physically prompting your child to do it in order to get it. So I'm not sure what you mean by not using pecs. Is it because you haven't used it, or he's. You taught it, but he's not using it? Those are two different things. Right. So you have to remember that. Okay. So I just realized. I just realized I've been going live on a different channel. So I'm gonna. Give me a moment. Yeah, Let me just go on live on Facebook as well, because I've been only going on for the. What's that called? I've been only going on on the YouTube channel and on the YouTube. On the Facebook group. That's why. Anyways, so you're very welcome. Francois says my child doesn't. Doesn't look right. Doesn't look at us when we call him. Like he doesn't hear us. He's wearing me. Yeah. The thing is about this, about not responding to name can be very worrying. And I know that. But at the same time, you need a. You need to understand, do you have something for him? Right? So you go ahead and search. You don't have to be here. Fans, fans. You can go into our YouTube channel and search, like, what if your child doesn't respond to your name or something, right? And watch that description and explanation first. If you like it, then, you know, great. If you don't, then that's also fine for me. But anyways, just go and read that first. Yeah, Kim, like, no worries. I mean, like, everyone, all parents start off like, as you get, you learn more, you have better questions. When you start off, you ask very elementary questions. Right? It's just every topic is like that. Then that's not packs, Right. If you're talking about yes, no and options or whatever, then that's not pecs. By itself. So what is he doing right now? Like what is he doing? Like, he's non verbal. So how does he get his, get his, his needs across? Is it like hand pulling or whatever? We've got loads of videos about that. You can just search an agent of speech in YouTube and our YouTube channel, like search for hand pulling and you'll get what you want. Like you, you'll understand at least from a very elementary point of view, then you will know what's going on. Right, so Ahmed says my child knows a lot of words by not using his words. So again, watch more of the videos about getting your child to use the words on, on our YouTube channel. Right? And it's really, it really isn't about, I think it really isn't about finding, making your child like use the words that he knows. It's about like finding the, the chances where you like, you just need to show them when to use it. Because most of the time if you watch the other videos, why children stim. That's the big word in this industry. And with parents, everything for parents is stimming. Everyone stims anyways. But that's another topic. What I mean is if he knows a lot of words and not using it, think about why. All right, Is it because no one modeled, no one modeled to them what they're supposed to say at that certain time and where did they learn all the language from? Is it from the videos? Is it from nursery rhymes and those? Do they have any like real life functional language use? Not really. All at all, really, to be honest. Like there isn't much interaction if it's like from a screen, you know. So what you need to do is to take a step back and model what language you want to hear from your kid. Okay. So what I say this in the, in my online course a lot. So what if you're learning a new language and then someone just keeps on asking you questions about what is this? What is that? How do you say this? What are you supposed to say? Can you say it longer please? If you don't know, then you don't know, then how are you gonna supposed to say anything longer, right? What if the opposite happened? Whenever you looked or something happened, someone would say the, the language for you and model it and told you you're supposed to say it like this. And this time that would be a lot better. You would learn it. You might not be able to say it like one or two times, but at the same time, By the same time, can you give him like Just tell him what, what, what to say at that time, like instead of asking. So, Feiye, I'm guessing that's your name. That's her daughter's name. I don't know what your name is, but you're in my course already. Thank you very much. But the pec system is not working either. Nothing's working. Only mans when he really wants something. However, it's not that often, right? So my question is, if you. If you have something right in front of him and he doesn't want it, then what does he do? You know, if he doesn't want it, then he doesn't want it enough. And that thing is not the right thing to use. As simple as that, right? So it's very hard for me to totally answer your question right here. If I haven't seen enough of her kid. That's a real big problem I have sometimes working online. But at the same time, I feel. I feel okay. I'm not entirely sure if he only mans when he really wants something. And how does he man with that? Like with words of what? If he can do it with words, that means he can actually talk, right? So it's doing an echo thing right now anyways. So I think if it's not often, that means you're not creating enough communication opportunities. In the course, we talk about how you should take stuff that he wants or likes. Entice him. If he comes, then, okay, then start training him to use sounds, gestures, or whatever means to get what he wants. If he doesn't want it, then so be it. Finding something else so that he will man. He needs to master demanding first, spontaneously, without a lot of effort. And at the same time, if you say that he really wants something, that means his wants are rather limited. You have to think about how to expand his wants as well, right? You know, try different snacks, try different drinks, try a lot of different toys. Just keep them rotating between it. Let him play it. You demonstrate how to play it, you know, if he likes screen time, use screen time as the reward instead and start from there. Or else it's very, very hard to get him white, like to get his attention and stuff, you know? And I know there are like a lot of. There are a lot of parents out there who say, oh, actually, a lot of therapists say, oh, you're not supposed to use rewards. You're not supposed to. Whatever, Whatever. Well, that's like. I feel like if you don't use it, it's very easy to feel like you're not going forward for Parents and like I can be very naturalistic and I can work over and over again, you know, but that's how you lose parents, you know, especially in a private setting. And I was, you know, I just want you to have a fast, like a quick win and feel that you can do it. And if you can, if you feel you can do it once for one small goal, then you can keep on going. Right? So with words, you have a lot of words but not use them. Okay, got it. I'll take this. Very good. So you know, like get something he wants and then like if he wants a cookie, give him a little cookie, like a small, very, very small piece. And if he wants, keeps on wanting, then keep on telling to like use a gesture or talk or whatever. So go through the course again, especially if you're in a micro course, then go through that. If he uses the words, it doesn't mean that he's good at using words either. If he has a lot of words right, he only to use words on demand is actually rather difficult for kids who are not using words for what they're intended to. So if they're using words for self entertainment purposes, then why would you think that it would be like for instance, if you can sing a song in Japanese, let's say, doesn't mean that you can recite a bunch of Japanese like, like one of my friends in primary school, you can. He can read Japanese words because you learn it from Pokemon doesn't mean he can generalize into like reading Japanese words in real life. Well, yes and no, not really. But it'll take a lot of, a lot of time of processing to think about and generalize that skill, you know. So I know it's a little bit far fetched, but I'm trying to. Sometimes I'm trying to give you different examples so you know what I'm talking about. Okay, so if I haven't made it even confusing for you guys, I hope I haven't. That's pretty much it for tonight. I want to talk again next Monday if I have time. I'm not particularly sure, I'll let you guys know, but so far, if you have any more questions, just keep it as a comment below. I'll try to get to you. And I'm coming to my last minute, but I see a question, so I'll try my best to. Well, that's not really a question. So it's just like a phonic sound, right? Go see a therapist about that. You know, you got to start from like, if you can go. Cha cha cha ka ka ka, Whatever. Then you need to test out what sound he has. If your child is under three, then you know it's more about expanding his language. Which means more about his receptive. How many words does he know that he doesn't need to speak as well? And that's it. Okay, I really need to go. I'll talk to you guys very soon. Bye bye.