How Do I Make My Child Talk Naturally? Q&A for Parents of Speech Delayed Children

All right, so today we're going to answer a bunch of questions from parents inside of our online community. If you want to ask those questions, you can join the online community. The link is in the description below. So I'll go one by one. There'll be timestamps. Go through those. And if you're here because of a search, just press the links in the description below to get to your question that you want to hear about. Okay, so the first one is from Angela. She says, hi, Ming. My daughter has been in therapy. She speaks spontaneously when she needs something. I keep showing her and explaining things, but I'm not sure if she'll start speaking by herself or will she keep depending on me to explain it? How do I tell her she needs to talk? Like in school, for instance? Social interaction with other children can't be forced. Also, how do I make her ask questions? Modeling is being taught, but I can't wean her from it. She's currently five and three months old. Okay. Five year and three months old. So that's a very long answer to this, Angela. And the first thing we need to look at is to do it step by step. And the latter part of the question, when you're like, oh, social interaction with other children, that is a different matter. Right? So you have to be able to do it at home or inside of a clinic setting in order for you to. To generalize it to. To school or other public places or in a small group, yada, yada. So I think the most important part of the question is you asking her to talk, because it's very. She's very dependent on your cues and prompts. So the. There are two reasons why you need to force or like to prompt. Number one is your prompt has become something that child depends on. And you said this yourself in your own words. Right? So how do. And I've said this multiple times before. If we always use questions or using our verbal prompts, it's very difficult to get rid of it. So the first thing is to fade it out. Okay. So you have to fade out your prompts. Okay. And you were saying that modeling is like something that you're doing for a long time already. So the very first thing I want you to do here, Angela, is to see if you can find, again, a common interest that she's invested into. Okay. And this is where the number two thing comes in. The word is context. All right? So if you can create a context where she wants to communicate with you, has something social going on that she wants to show to you, or she has, like, some sort of a game that she wants to win or she wants to play with you, then most probably we can do this. And I can tell you an example from before. A child, a girl as well. Back then she was like 12 years old. And I think now she's probably like 15, 16 or something. But anyways, she used to be, like, just. She would only talk when prompted. And this is your question, Angela. And then we start to do a lot of play, and the play involves, like, board games, just pretend play, whatever. But what really clicked was when we leaned into what her interests were, which were toy reviews. Right. So we started to do toy reviews with her and where she needed a script and she would speak into the camera and stuff. And that really opened it up for her between the mother and herself. And then what we did was, like, we started to generalize it with, like, other people, like her classmates or friends or whatever, and we went from there. Okay, so the. To answer your question, the first step is to create other language functions that have some social aspect or game or whatever that you guys can enjoy together. And therefore you can move away from prompting because the context will prompt it for you. Okay. From what you're saying right now, it sounds like you don't. You're just telling him, telling her to say whatever is needed to be said. Okay, again, it's always back to incentives. Right. The two things again are, number one, can you find another way to prompt that you can fade out, like, meaning you can use a gesture, you can use visual, social, whatever cues. And then number two is once you find a way to. To fade away those prompts, do you have an incentive for her to actually talk to you? Okay, most of the time, children don't even want to talk. And the reason is they're literally isn't a reason for them. So make a reason for them. Okay, the next question is from Sredini. Sorry, I'm getting this name totally. I got it right the first time, I guess. So if I butcher a name here. I'm sorry. Hi. My son speaks in sentences, but for storytelling, I need to prompt him on what happened next by asking questions. How do I help him narrate the story by himself without my prompts? He doesn't have why answer for all questions, but understands and answers some of the why questions. Please share a structure on the next steps so I can work on to reach storytelling. Thanks. First of all, I don't know if your son is already capable of telling a story. And this is again, like the biggest problem is you have to prompt with the what's happening? Like that what's happened next. So I wouldn't even start with stories. I would start with a sequence cards that has no story in it. It's just basic instructions of how to do something. So one of the ways that worked for us was doing Lego with parents and the child. So if they held on to a the instructions or vice versa, like one person has instructions, one person is building the Lego. And if the child is okay with that and allows that and understands that, then great, then what we can do here is that we can have the instructions read out. You're like a robot. You only do the thing being the step. And by stopping, you prompt your child to say the next thing. And it doesn't need to be super hard. It could be like making a very simple Lego thing. It could be like making a drink. It could be like preparing a sandwich. And you just stop unless he says it. And once he does get it, what you can do is you can take a video pictures of the steps and then make it into cards so that he can say it in one go. And then you'll make the sandwich. Something like that. Okay, Just start there first before the why questions even. Okay, so next question is from Jessica. She says, my daughter is two when she says words omit sounds. For example, for pink, it's ink for ha or ha instead of hat. How. How can I get her to enunciate all sounds in the word your daughter is too? Jessica, what you're describing here is what we call a final or initial consonant deletion. It's a crazy long word for just meaning, like just omitting the first and last consonant sounds. Right. So what do we do is that you need to do a articulation screener or like an assessment. But because she's 2, that might be a little bit too early. Okay, so usually if a child is two and then we have to sit her down and do this kind of like test, it would be a little bit difficult. So what I would say is let's do the test when she's like around two and a half to three. But during this time, what I want you to do is to emphasize on the, on the sound that is missing. Right. Don't need a push to correct her too much. Right. And see if she actually has the sounds that are missing. So just by what we call isolation, for instance, the P sound would be like that. So you can think of it as I always tell parents, like jolly phonics right? Think about the what sound the child is supposed to say and then just try that to see if she actually has it or not. If she has it because she's so young, chances are she'll probably pick it up. But I'm like, I'm not going to tell you this is for sure. Obviously there are risks, right? So I'm just going to say if this hat is, is missing the T, try, if the T sound is there, try the P sound if it's there and go from there. Just tell her, can you copy? Can you copy? Oh, you have it. Okay, cool. Then, then you go one by one, you go ink, right? And then if that's going to work. But it's really individualized, I really don't know. Like you, you can put up two fingers and the first finger is like P ink and go pink or like ha. Right? That's if your child has those sounds. Okay, next is Nagat. So Nagmet, I actually just finished looking at your videos but you ask how do I encourage my son to imitate words of things he's not interested in right now? He will imitate things he wants, candy, ice cream, etc. How do I encourage him to say words without telling him say that. Thanks. Yeah, so it's a. I've answered that in the video that you sent me through the online assessment. So if you guys are watching this and thinking, okay, how do I get someone from our team to look at videos? We have something called an online assessment. But anyways, you can access that inside of the community and ask there. But to answer your question is it's a long process and we have to see, we have to get the invitation to a very, how to say to a very good cadence. Meaning like if we cannot get a child to imitate sounds, we go down one level and do actions. Right. Why? Because if it's a no brainer for a child, oh, it's so easy for me to copy an action. I get it. Then why not right? Instead of snatching. Okay, but the problem is like if we can get. If you want a child to imitate a word, right. There is no guarantee that your child will say it. And therefore when you say the word and you repeat it multiple times, you're actually creating failed attempts. Right. So what is the way that can reduce failed attempts? And it's not up to chance is to do actions because then you can prompt, physically take their hand and do the thing that you wanted them to do. Right. So Nagmed, the very first step is to go all the way back to the basic and do action imitation. All our parents will say, oh, my son can talk. Yeah, but then does he understand the compliancy of meaning? Are they willing to imitate everything you say? Right. Because if they don't have that relationship, it's very difficult to go on to the next thing. Okay. And have you teach him anything. It'll be super hard. Okay, so next question. Sheena says, hi Ming, thanks for this section. My son is six years old. He is so much more confident than what he used to be last year. However, he seems not to be able to use connectors in his language like and then because afterwards etc to make his sentences longer. Is there a way to teach him? For example, show him a picture of a girl holding an umbrella during a rainfall. And I ask him to describe the picture. Usually he will just say holding an umbrella. How do I get him to describe with more words she is holding an umbrella because it's raining. If I prompt him with the word because, then we just add yeah, he'll just add the words himself. It is raining. So very simple, Sheena, you can get a piece of paper, write the word because, slap it in front of him and tell him that this is the structure I want you to do. I feel like there's a lack of demonstration of what how long of a sentence he's supposed to do because she's holding an umbrella is very dysfunctional. Right? So then why would he want to say something longer? And especially he doesn't understand what is required of him. So a lot of times it's about getting a whiteboard or like a piece of blank paper out and just write because in the middle. And then like the because it's between two underscores. So it doesn't matter if you're using a whole piece of paper or just the word because what you want to do is to get rid of the prompting that is verbal. Like I was talking about in the first question that was asked. You need to have a visual prompt, so to speak. And after that, because you have a visual prompt, it's much easier to give feedback. So when he does use because, you can show that piece of paper and say yes, you did say because, right? Yeah, that's right. She's holding umbrella, umbrella because it was raining. And then you can praise and it's a good way to give feedback. Okay, cool. Then says, hi Ming. My son is 11 years old. When I ask him questions like who is wearing blue shirt, he will point to the right picture. But Will say blue shirt. Instead of answering who, he will answer only with verbal cue. Any suggestions? Yeah, I feel like he doesn't really understand the who question here. And I feel like usually speaking, we would just give the full. Like to make it easy for parents. What I would say is just to give the full answer after asking the question, do it a few times. When they understand there's two parts of the answer. A question is after the question. So when he doesn't understand what people do is people, as in everyone. We repeat the last thing we hear so that we can get some sort of a clarification. Right. So if you say something to me that is like super technical, I'm like, maybe. Oh, just the other day I was talking about AI and then this guy was like, oh, yeah, you should. You should use a python script. I'm like, what Python script? I. It's like I didn't even understand what he was saying, so I was repeating the last word of his. Of his question or whatever. So it's the same with children and adults. So then the best way is to teach that directly. Like, with enough demonstrations, the who and where questions should be pretty easy to handle. So who's wearing the blue shirt? This guy. Right. Who's wearing the, I don't know, beige search shirt? Ming. Right. And do it a few times with different contrast, like people with different shirts on. Right. That's how you teach it. Just by modeling the answer right away. Because from what I hear, this is like answer with verbal Q. You need to do it many times, man. You know, keep doing it, do it a hundred of times until he gets it. Okay? Because that's how you. That's how you teach something. All right, anyways, next question. Siobhan. I hope I'm getting it right. My son is 4, recently diagnosed with autism level 3. I homeschool and I have and I have been doing OT at home. He is able to repeat entire songs, sometimes phrases, words he hears, sometimes in context, more often not. We made some mild progress with learning. He needs sign asl the word and what it pertains to, and he will eventually use it, unsure of if he is just want. Wanting to not do it. Because sometimes he prefers giving what he needs empty cup package to open. What would be the easiest sign for him to help with opening and giving necessities or wants besides a high sign? Help? Yeah, my friend, if you've gone through the material inside of the community itself, the best way is to. There's a blanket thing that speech therapists all over the around, around the world teach is like the more or like help, which is different in different scenarios and different cultures. That's what I mean. For instance, opening is also very easy to teach. What I would say is if you're doing ASL already, just search the verb that is associated with that action, give, open, poor. These things will help. So I would just say teaching more ASL according to the function, the verb of, of what he wants, the action word. Okay. All right, next question. My son is 2, 2 years and 9 months old. He does a lot of self talk, especially rhymes. Answers whatever is asked. How do I encourage him to talk and communicate more? I think this is a very like open ended question without much context here. So like to communicate more while you have to have something he wants, right? And then you have to create the play that you guys are having together so that he wants to communicate more than just whatever is asked at that current time. And that's like just going out on a date with a random guy or girl and then you guys have nothing in common. Then you have nothing to talk about. So a lot of parents ask me how come my child doesn't want to talk to me? Because there's nothing to say. Literally your child's interests are ABC numbers and stuff. Right? But then it's a single player game. He can just do it himself. Why would he want to share that with you? And all he's going to ask for is for you to say it just like in the video. That's all right. My suggestion to you is teach play. And we have a whole thing about it. Just go to Word Combiners, the free course inside of the community. That's it's pretty good. Learn how to play. Okay, next question is from Ashley. My son is three years old and diagnosed with autism. Three months ago he was fine and repeating words, but he then he start regressing at around age 2. Okay. By the way, regressing is a huge like hallmark of autism. He now says only two words and that is it. He does not repeat the words, unfortunately, but does imitate the movements. He only points as at things that he wants or brings his shoes or my shoes. When he wants to go outside, for instance. Okay. Or if he wants to play with the toy, he brings it up to me. So that is the communication. No words. Is there any hope still one day he might start talking. Even if he is not repeating or saying any words. How can I encourage them repeat words? Ashley, first of all, I cannot give you hope. I can't do that. All I'm doing here over on YouTube inside of the community and making videos, writing emails, coaching parents. What am I doing is to give you the tools so that you can increase the likelihood that may happen. But it starts off with you, right? So a good question is how can you encourage to repeat words? Get something he wants, man. Go through the micro course inside of the, of the online community. We have so many free courses. I know it's overwhelming, but you have. If you want to go on this journey, this is where you should start. All right? Learn how to get something your child wants and then teach him or her to do some action imitations first, right? So that you can get away from what he is using right now, like pulling you, bringing new stuff and see you as a teacher more rather than like a vending machine, like he's bringing stuff up or a problem solver or like a can opener or whatever. So this is where I would start, actually. Get something he wants, sit him down, do some stuff with him, teach him to like imitate actions, right? Use some sign language. And then afterwards, because he had words before, it's just a matter of getting it back out. So I'm saying it as if it's very easy, but it's up to you. Okay. Anyways, next one Anma Mna says, hi, Ming. My son is five. He is able to read story phonics and answer questions when I asked. However, he does not speak unless he likes something. How can I encourage him to speak naturally? This is a very not good question, my friend. What does speak naturally mean? I don't know what that means. Okay, again, if you have no common interest with your, with a child, you need to learn how to play, you need to learn how to sell a toy, you need to learn how to get them to follow instructions with you and then go from there and not. Don't a lot of parents just focus on the talking? Oh, I want them to talk. But what can you talk with them about? Because a lot of times when like you have typical developing children, they do the heavy lifting for you, right? Because they don't really care if you're listening. They're just like, keep on talking about their own stuff. Especially if you have a daughter. And this hits a brick wall. When children get to teenage, like teenage years, when you realize that the teenagers have nothing in common with you or vice versa, the teenagers realize, oh my God, like I have nothing to do with. My parents, don't like the things that I like. And then you guys stop talking. And I wonder why? Because you guys don't have a common topic. So for younger children, if they already are language delayed, what you need to do is to create scenarios, contexts, shoot games, books, whatever, board games to make them want to talk to you. Okay. It's just like my wife loves telling me about her dreams. Does that mean I like listening to it? I don't know, man. And the same, when I talk about computer and AI stuff with my wife, and sometimes I talk about teaching children, she's not all that interested either. So we do have common topics that we need to find, and when we have that, we can build relationships over it. Okay? So I hope that answers your question, my friend. So next question is Elizabeth. She says, thanks for the opportunity. My daughter will be three years old in August, and she's yet to say an understandable word. She just babbles. And the therapist diagnosed her with social communication difficulties as well as language difficulties. Okay, that tells me nothing about the diagnosis. Anyways, I have taught her some gestures, but she only loves to point and use others when prompted to use them. Like when I ask, are you hungry? Then she rubs her tummy. Okay, that's pretty cool. Whether she is hungry or not, I've been consistently teaching her to use verbal imitation course. Okay. The one that inside of our community. So good job. They teach her to imitate and she taps me sometimes to get my attention and other times just says a babble. All right? When she even tries to say a word, it comes out like she is stuttering. Like when I say hi, she goes, hi. Okay, I don't know how to translate that into like real speech from reading. Then she closes her face with a palm like she's afraid to talk. Really wish there was something I could do to build her confidence to learn to talk. Okay, so how about this? Since you're doing some imitation, right? How far along have you come to. So instead of teaching a word, can you teach a vowel like ah, Like. Like a u and see where the breakdown is? Right. Even if it is stuttery, even if this is a speech disorder, there must be a point where she is still able to say the words or the sounds without sounding like stuttering. I'm air quotation marks here. So you need to find that since you're using already using the course, can she do action imit? To what extent? Fine motor, gross motor. Right after that, is she able to do like a vowel? If she can, then good, like increase into two vowels. Go, I, go, E, whatever, and go from there. So the next question is from Shifiah. And her question is when is the right time to use ac? I have no idea. Everyone has a different answer to that. Most of Americans and western countries nowadays, they use it whenever they can. And obviously I do not like that from a personal standpoint, not professionally. Because professionally speaking AC does have research talking about like getting children to learn language with the C stuff. I would say if they were in my clinic, it's up to me. I would say like at 4, if they really were a speech disordered case, like a speech case instead of a language case, I would start thinking about AAC and see if it. How it can functionally work at home. Because a lot of times when you teach AC and use AAC the parents don't know what to do and it doesn't even get used. Right. So I would start there. Right? If they are like a speech case or a language case. Right. If they're a language case, I wouldn't really touch it that much because there are better ways to prompt language. But if it were a speech case and we need something to replace talking and at 4 I think is a good time like then okay, maybe we can do some functional stuff with se. All right, that's my take. Next question is from Jelena or Jelena, I don't know, probably Yelena. From. From like your surname I'm guessing. I am so happy for the journey. Okay, good. Thank you for being happy. I have a problem with my son who is non verbal. Have some progress. Thank you for the course. Zero to words. That's the free one inside of the community. So if you're watching this and you want to just click on the link below. Agents of speech.com course. Okay. And I see that he can do it. So I think it's going to going to progress even more. You won't know unless you try. My problem is that my son is 7 years old so he will go to primary school in September. But I can I still carry him when I go to places that he doesn't know or when he is overstimulated by the noise from kids around him what to do to change that. Because in school this is going to be noisy in a place he doesn't know. Okay. So when I go home from the place that he doesn't know, when I say to him that we are going home, he will. He would walk also. He would do that even if he's over stimulated. Okay. So you think about what is the overstimulation, right? If it's noise, then teach him with give him like A what's? I call that your defender. Like the stuff that you use at noisy places. Right. See if that works. But if that's the case, I would seriously, I am no sensory guy so I would say go to ot occupational therapist and if it's outside of sensory stuff is about behavioral stuff, then find a behavioral therapist. So this is outside of my expertise so I cannot really tell you if you're going to ask me about the non verbal stuff, I would be better equipped to do. All right, next question is from Soumya. So my child is four and a half years old and has made significant progress over the past six months and is now speaking at full sentences about topics that interest him. We've been consistently working on wh questions helping him engage with both strangers and familiar situations in daily life. However, he rarely asks questions on his own. How do I encourage him to be more curious about everyday things and develop a better understanding of common sense? Huh? Okay. Also, in recent times he is screaming a lot just simply because he is bored. How to control this? And even while playing or talking, he screams at high pitch. Those are two separate things. The first thing is if you want him to be quote unquote more curious and ask more questions, right? That's something that you cannot really push. There are ways to do and we have a whole thing about playing with board games and stuff. So the best way is to like create scenarios where he would have to ask a question to clarify. So that would be an abort game situation. If you play a new game that he doesn't know how to play and you keep on saying that oh, that's against the rules, then obviously he's going to have to ask like why or what are the rules? Right? So you have to create the situations for him. It could be in daily life or whatever. Or in daily life you could use the wrong tools for different things and give him something else so that he'll talk more. And I don't know what you mean by common sense at all because common sense can be uncommon at times and everyone's definition would be different. So all I'm going to say to you, my friend, is that create situations, whether it's in board games or everyday life, giving him the wrong tools for the for different scenarios like using a fork to drink soup or whatever and then just wait for him to talk, right? And then you can ask why? And then he'll answer, oh, what do you mean you need a spoon? You can use the fork and then you'll be like, no, I can't use the spoon. And you're like, why? And then you're like, oh, can scoop it up. Oh, okay, can you show it to me? See? Oh. And then you're like, what do you mean? Why? What do you mean? And then he'll start talking more. So, like, having that kind of interest going on is all about sabotaging and making fun things happen in everyday life. And about the screaming, I don't know, my friend, if he's bored, you cannot control someone. What you can do is you can. You can praise whenever he's not screaming. You can ignore when he's screaming. You have to understand why he's screaming. Is it really. Is it that he's really bored? Is it your reaction to it? That I feel like, oh, I actually trying to get your attention. So I cannot fully unpack the whole answer here without going back and forth and knowing more a little bit about the context. All right? So to me, I feel like the easiest thing that you can implement with the screaming is to praise and reward whenever he is being nice and not screaming and talking, and that's that. And if you know the reason for it, then I'm not sure if it's really bored or not. I. I don't. I really don't know. If that is the case, then give him something else to do. Right? You have a replacement behavior, so to speak. All right, next question. Vincent, my son is 17 months old, nonverbal. His behavior is a concern. His temperate 00, 100. Nothing is in between. He whines a lot and screams when things don't go his way. Following simple instructions such as follow where I go away for kiss is a challenge. How do I teach him to communicate calmly when he wants something? I'm doing open box activity more often now. It works sometimes, but often he gets very impatient. So, Vincent, because your son is very young and I've talked about this when I see some videos from you, you also got the online assessment. I would say that, like, telling him what to do is like a lot of parents that I see. I'm not saying a lot of all parents are like that. They treat their children like, I don't know, it's like remote control via voice, as a voice control, whatever. Like, they treat it like some sort of a. If they say something, they're supposed to listen. But a lot of times what you can do instead is to take their hand and finish the activity that they need to do. So if you want them to. To stay calm and do whatever, like wave high and low Kiss or whatever, just take their hand and do it and then let them and sit and praise them, right? And if he's very impatient trying to get the reward that you put inside of the box as outlined in the micro course, by the way, if you're watching this and you're like, what the heck is that? Then it's very simple, right? Take him hand on hand and tell him to do the open palm or do open whatever action that you want him to learn and just give him the reward, right? Let him know that as long as he finishes what you asked him to do, whether if he did it himself or you helped him do it, then he'll get the reward. Okay? And this is a mindset set shift from you, because if you can do that, you will have a much calmer child. Because a lot of times if we like voice control and give a verbal command with no prompts and cues, it's going to make a child unhappy. What do you want me to do? I don't understand. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing more steps? It's like asking an employee or your subordinate to ot to do overtime without explaining. And then you hold up the salary whilst if they don't do the extra work, that's just that. Okay, next question. Rama, longtime client here. What's up? So how do I teach my son to apply language he use at home in other sittings? For example, he says, mom helped me at home. But when he sees speech therapy, he can't ask for help or being as talkative as he is at home. Yeah. So it's definitely something that will happen no matter what. So what you can do here is like you can bring another child at home and do play dates and then slowly do the same activities you were doing with both of them. Right. Or you can get the speech therapy to come at home. So that's easier to generalize, but this is a generalization issue. So you need to be the person who's helping him generalize to other people. All right? And it's going to take a lot of time as well. It's not easy step. So I think the first step is to get a play date or something or another adult that he doesn't usually speak to that much. And you're there to facilitate that language. You can prompt, you can ask him questions, you can reward, you can praise right when he does talk and incentivize him. Okay? All right, last question from Darina, long time client as well. She says, my child had Echelia till he was Almost four. I thought we were in the clear, but that clear just came back at 4 years and 10 months. Can you explain this? No, I cannot explain it. I don't know why it comes and it goes and there is a reason for the echelaria, most of the time is for entertainment purposes. So if he feels like he wants to, like he's bored or whatever, and it comes, then yeah, fair enough. So I really cannot explain it, to be very honest with you. And later is a part of language learning anyways, might be because he's learning a lot more words now and he's more capable. So when he thinks about something, he uses it to practice, so to speak. So that is some of the theory behind echolalia. And it depends on how. If it's delayed echolalia or immediate echolalia. That would also have different reasons for doing so. That was my cat sneezing. Sorry, it's been raining. She's a little cold. So anyways, that's the end of this Q A. I like doing these Q and A's. It's easier because I get all the questions in advance and I can go through them in my own time and then talk with the camera. And if you want to ask questions like these, you can go to agentsofspeech.com course inside of the community. You will see every month, maybe bi weekly, every month or so, I will create a post where I get questions from you guys that I can answer like this. And then after you watch these answers, I can point you towards the right direction about resources, what to do, and you can ask further questions inside of the community after watching this. Okay, so that's it for today. Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next video. All right, bye. Bye.