How Covid Affected Speech Delayed Children

Hi, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're talking about how COVID 19 has affected speech delay and just children in general. Alright, so throughout this three year span, I feel like everyone has stopped for three years. Definitely in terms of services, I also have stopped for around like two years. Right. So let's talk about what has happened. The first thing is less interactions. A lot of parents are saying, oh, my baby is a Covid baby. They've never seen anyone before in their life. So when they go to school, it's like a whole new world to them. Well, yep, that's true. That is very true. So less interactions. They do affect children. From the way that I see is that their play skills aren't developing the way that we used to think children would typically. And you know, playing with toys physically with other people is a thing that should be happening at around like two and a half to three. Right? But you have to remember, so this is a huge marker I want to tell you as well as a child develops, the first playmate are the parents. So when you have parents at home because of working from home and whatever, you should see that the kids should be playing with the parents a lot more. Now this brings me to the next problem is that there's a lot more parent and child interaction time. And what that means is can you create an environment where the child can have fun with you? Right. And learn together. So the answer usually I hear is that, you know, because parents are working from home and there's no real separation between work and also, and also play time or the rest time, it becomes increasingly hard to actually have quality time. So whether you like it or not, I'm gonna be the person to say it, is that when you're at home, right, you have to give around 10 to 15 minutes every day just to have quality time, quality interaction time with your child. All right, so what Covid has brought as well is there's no clear distinction about when you're working or you're not. Okay. It's the same for me as well. Whilst I'm bringing this work online, what happens is that whenever I'm at home, I'm in work mode and it's very hard to just relax. I get it. Okay? But at the same time, this is not an excuse. Now I say excuse. I don't mean to be harsh on parents to use a lot more screen time. And this is what I like. The studies, or not really studies, just from me observing and talking to parents over the Internet through Consultations and also comments and emails is that a lot of parents are relying on screen time to keep their, their little ones busy during their work time and also during COVID Right? And you see this reliance on screen time. And that's why whenever we do a video about screen time, we get a lot of views and we got a lot of people talking about, oh, mang, dude, you're right. My kid has virtual autism, right? And remember, this is a huge something I have to say. Like you cannot take my word in a different way that I say it. When I say that there might be virtual autism, I really mean might, okay? And when I say, is your child autistic or on the virtual autistic, no one knows. This is not a real term yet, right? Nobody knows anything at this moment in time. And how this Covid affects us, we will only know in the long run, okay. No matter if it's like the health problems, right? Physiologically, you know, like how the vaccines will interact with us, our babies will be with these things going on, how our social interactions will become with everything on zoom. Nowadays, a lot of therapists not going back to work, right? And instead there's a huge telepractice going on. There's also virtual reality going on. Everything that is going to change the interaction of children and how education will work in the future. Okay? So other than that, let's talk about how Covid has actually made things quite difficult for assessment and treatment. So a lot of parents will say, dude, these two or three years is gone, right? So whoever had to get an assessment at three, now they waited two and a half years. They're probably five, nearly six. And those kids, that's just one generation of them, like maybe the second, like two or three years after. You can still see the whole line just shifting two and a half to three years. Now that's not a good sign because as we're going into this, we're already global shortage of therapists. You wouldn't believe how many parents are telling me how they cannot get appointment even in developed countries, right? So this is something that you have to really think about and be very wary about. Because if you miss out an assessment, if you miss out a therapy, miss out a chance to get it, and you think about to not saying that all therapy in the world is great, but if you let that chance go, it will be very difficult for you to get it afterwards at this moment in time. So maybe this will change in the near future. Just as of this date, I would say that it's Very. It's quite difficult. All right? Just be careful about like your decisions about that. But there is a silver lining about this because now that a lot of therapists like myself are working online and a lot of the emphasis has become teaching you to become a therapist at home, then this is your chance of creating something great for a kid, right? Taking that time, just Maybe even like 15 to 20 minutes every day to train up your child to help them develop language better. That's why there's agents of speech. That's why this YouTube channel grew from. From the start of the pandemic. So remember, all right? Remember how Covid will affect us doesn't mean it's something for us to blame, all right? It really is something truly, we have to start pivoting. And a lot of times when I am teaching parents, it's more of like when you're watching this video, you're learning how to diy, like, do it yourself. I can do it with you virtually to look at how you're doing. You asking me questions. But done for you was never the goal for therapy. You have to remember that because I can never like, no one in the world, no therapist can do it for you. Okay? There's no done for you model in therapy or in education. Well, you could send your child to boarding school, right? But is there a boarding school for early childhood education? There's a huge emphasis on parental training. And that's why as we go into this era of post pandemic, a lot of us will be actually using this opportunity to teach you, the parent, even more skills to bring home. So that later on when the world becomes quote, unquote normal again, now it's new normal already. Can we actually come out of this pandemic stronger as an industry, like the therapy industry? Can we move forward? Can we make it easier for parents just to snap of a fingers? Can teach you the required skills. Right? So probably this is not the thing you wanted to hear about, like how Covid is hurting your kid, like interactions, whatever. To be honest, early intervention always starts with the parents, right? Anyone who tells you otherwise, I don't know, is not going to be on your side. Because even if you bring your child to me every day, how many hours can you spend with me? Whereas nowadays you have so much time with your kid, right? Maybe you're not as fortunate as the parents who are reaching out to me, but the pandemic has created a world where parents will working at home more often. Right. And that the school time will be cut, not dramatically. But, you know, I see a lot of countries now are doing like half day or are doing less time at school. So the responsibility kind of skews back towards the family. And that has always been the case. Alright. No matter how much, you cannot outsource this sort of language therapy because at the end of the day, you need to be the person who should be doing it. All right? So hopefully I didn't step on anyone's toes or whatever. And I'm just here to tell you the truth. Okay? This is. Your child's language development shouldn't be determined by Covid. All right? And therefore, you need to try your best to be at home and watch more of our videos. That doesn't need to be ours. There's loads of resources online and that's pretty much it. So before we go, if you haven't, Please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist and grab a list of free tools and toys that we recommend you getting when you start your home therapy. All right, so that's it for today. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.